


Once more, with feeling

by fox_diaz



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, I don't know how to do tags, I don't know it's just sad isn't it, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Wayward Son, lockdown - Freeform, now complete with happy ending!, picks up where Wayward Son left off, this is somehow mostly about pasta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24324808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fox_diaz/pseuds/fox_diaz
Summary: Simon's moving out and moving on. Baz still can't work out where it all went so hideously wrong. Penny's in denial, Agatha's reluctant to put down roots, and Shepard - well, Shepard is probably doing just fine, I haven't actually asked him.It's Monday the 23rd of March 2020 and the UK is just about to be plunged into lockdown.But this lot don't know that yet.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 155
Kudos: 327





	1. Chapter 1

BAZ

Simon is meant to be moving out today. Penny tells me he’s been packing aimlessly for two days, throwing things into boxes without properly looking at them, so that she has to go around after him and sort them out properly. Roll up wayward socks and put them in with the others, instead of crammed between school books and dusty old DVDs. Make sure he’s not going to end up with shoeboxes full of crushed valuables. Not that he really has any. 

She tries not to look hurt when we meet up and conversation inevitably turns to all things Snow, but I can tell it’s really getting to her. She has this need to find a solution, to solve the endless problem that is Simon, but he’s cutting her off; moving far enough away that she can’t pounce on him whenever he walks into the living room, or corner him by the kettle anymore. 

I’m much better at pretending not to be hurt. I’ve had years of practice. Plus, Bunce and I tend to drink tea on the pavement outside a sad little cafe in Holborn when we meet, and I always wear my sunglasses. 

It’s much easier to hide your true feelings about the painful and shambolic existence of your ex-boyfriend when nobody can see your eyes.

We tried not to talk about him the first time, but it was absolutely ridiculous, like trying to have a normal conversation with an atomic bomb rolling merrily about on the table between us. We’re so used to everything revolving around him - trying to keep him on track, keep him going - that it took us a while to find something else to chat about. We’re like a couple whose only child has fucked off to uni, leaving us with a gaping hole to try to fill with our own personalities again. I think it’s called empty-nest syndrome. And now Simon’s well and truly flying it. 

“Why can’t he get a job and stay living with you?” I demanded when she broke the news, and she’d recoiled away from me, like I was angry with _her_. Which I suppose I was, in a way. She was meant to be the one keeping an eye on him now. And it felt like she’d failed. 

“I don’t know,” she said, looking utterly bereft. “I tried, I really did, but he says he wants to live with - people like him. With Normals.” 

“ _He’s not Normal_ ,” I hissed. As if she didn’t already know that. We’d left early, before we’d even finished our tea, leaving steaming cups of it behind on the table as we stalked away in opposite directions. 

Well, I stalked. I don’t think Bunce is capable of stalking. 

I called her to apologise, later. I don’t have a lot of friends right now. I can’t afford to lose Penny. 

Simon is moving to Wimbledon to live in a house-share full of Normals and do an apprenticeship in construction. He’s starting an entirely new life without me, without magic, and even though he’ll only be at the far end of the District line, it feels like I’m losing him all over again. When Penny told me I had to excuse myself to go to the grotty loo at the back of the cafe and bend over the sink for a while, trying to swallow down this hard, sharp pain in my throat that wouldn’t go away. Eventually it settled back into my stomach, where it usually lives. 

Getting dumped just before a long-haul flight is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Not that I have one any more. It used to be Simon. Sometimes I wish I could hate him, or that he’d hate me; that I could rage and rage against him and pick fights with him and have him back in some sad, infinitesimal way. But all the fight has gone out of him. He wouldn’t fight for me. For us. He just wanted to close the book on it all; tie it off neatly and move on, to find out if I’m the last thing holding him back from being truly happy. 

That’s not how he phrased it, of course. He said “I can’t give you what you want, Baz.” 

And I said “I don’t want anything from you, Simon,” but I knew it wasn’t true. I didn’t need him to be a good boyfriend. I didn’t even need him to be happy. But I did need him to come to me when he was sad, or angry, or grieving; to trust me with that, to let me sit with him through it. To let me hold his fucking hand without both of us having separate aneurysms about what it could possibly mean. 

Bunce wanted to sit with Wellbelove on the plane home, but I saw Simon shoot her this panicked, pleading look, and she sighed and settled in between the two of us instead. I think Agatha was pretty pleased to get to sit on her own. I sat staring out of the window for the full eleven hours, thinking about how he’d looked at Penny when we boarded. It was a look that so clearly said _save me_. 

Because I’d become something Simon needed saving from.

There was a time not so long ago when we were almost constantly occupied with saving _each other_. 

Some dark, terrible part of me kept hoping the engines really would fail this time around. That I’d get to see Simon sense danger and turn immediately to me, to reach for me on instinct, one last time. 

But of course, we stayed airborne. Simon fell asleep watching old episodes of _Parks and Recreation_. Penny read. I leaned my head against the grey, plasticky interior of the plane and let my heart break over and over again until the pain didn’t feel like waves any more. It didn’t come and then retreat. 

It just pulled me under.   
  
  


SIMON

I wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, so of course I’m locked out in just joggers and a t-shirt, with no shoes on and no clue how I’m going to get back inside. Penny’s at home - not our flat, _home_ home - and even if I ring her now, she won’t be able to get here for ages. I ring her anyway. My feet are fucking freezing. 

“Simon, I’m sorry, but the only other person who has the key-”  
  
“I’ll work something out,” I say quickly. “I’ll - fly up and break a window, or something.”  
  
“ _Simon_ ,” Penny says, in that same exasperated tone she’s taken to using whenever we talk, “You absolutely cannot _fly up and break a window_. The spell’s still holding, isn’t it? Besides, our windows are double-glazed.” 

“Maybe I’ll just …” I say, but then I run out of words, because I have absolutely no idea what I’ll “just”. She’s right. I don’t have my wings right now. She’s been getting so good at concealment spells that she can vanish them for weeks at a time. 

“Just call him. He’ll let you in, he’ll go home. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Right, well thanks a lot, Penny. As long as it’s _not a big deal_ ,” I say gruffly, but it’s not her fault. My heart is already hammering in my throat thinking about making that phone call. I almost want to stretch this one out, not let Penny go so I can put it off for as long as possible, but then she sighs and says goodbye and hangs up before I can say anything else. 

I scroll through my contacts list before remembering that I deleted Baz’s name months ago. I didn’t delete his number - I just removed the identifying information. Saved it under something else, to try to trick myself into forgetting that calling him was an option. Clearly, it worked. I can’t find him. I’m getting annoyed now, thumbing angrily up and down through the relatively short list of friends and acquaintances, and then I see it; a contact called _TBGP DO NOT CALL._

I call. 

“Simon?” Baz sounds completely baffled and croaky, almost like he’s only just woken up. I feel so hot and sick all over that my face scrunches up in horror just at the sound of his voice. Not a great start.

“Uh, yeah. Hi,” I say, shoving my free hand in my pocket and kicking at the doorstep, immediately regretting it when I stub my toe. 

“Hi,” he says, and I can just picture him raising an eyebrow, waiting to see what utter shite will come out of my mouth next. 

“Sorry,” I say, everything coming out in a rush, “but the door shut behind me when I was doing the bins and Penny said - she said to call you and I really didn’t know what else to do. I wouldn’t have called, obviously, but it’s the fucking - it’s the double-glazing. I wouldn’t be able to get in, even if I _did_ get up there. So …”  
  
“You’re locked out?” Baz says, somehow deriving meaning from this stream of absolute nonsense. 

“Yeah,” I say in relief. “Yeah, I’m locked out. Penny says you've still got a key. You do still have it, right? Because-”  
  
“I still have it,” Baz says quickly. He clears his throat. “I’ll be - give me half an hour.” I go to thank him, but he’s already hung up. People keep _doing_ that to me today. 

I sit with my head in my hands on the doorstep for ages, ignoring the increasingly concerned stares of passers-by, wishing I’d had the presence of mind this morning to put on something other than beer-stained joggers and - oh _fuck_. I sit up straight like I’ve been physically shocked and gaze down in horror at what I’m wearing. It’s Baz’s old Watford football shirt. He left it at the flat just before we went to America, and I’ve been wearing it to sleep in, because I’m tragic and pathetic and I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, and-

“Hello.” 

Baz is standing a few feet away, frowning down at me, a little back-lit by the low winter sun. He’s clearly just showered; his hair is still a bit wet, and I can _smell_ him, clean and musky and so familiar I feel like I've fallen into one of my recent dreams. He’s wearing dark jeans and a black wool peacoat with the collar up, looking every inch a vampire. He’s so fucking beautiful. Somehow even better than I remembered. I want to touch him. I want to push my face into his shoulder and just breathe in the smell of him. I want to die. 

“Hello,” I say awkwardly instead. “Keys?” 

“Right,” he says slowly, reaching into his pocket and pulling them out. He goes to hand them to me but I step aside instead, eyes fixed on the pavement. I don’t want to look at him properly again. I don’t want to think about what he’s seeing when he looks at me; my hair’s grown out, I haven’t showered for three days, and I’m wearing his old shirt like I’ve been sitting around pining after him for six months. 

I haven’t been pining. Not really. I’ve been repressing, instead. Much cleaner. 

Baz unlocks the door and pushes it open, and then we both just stand there looking at it, like it’s going to do a magic trick. 

“You should keep these,” he says, trying to hand me the keys.

“No, I mean - Penny’s still your friend, you might want to come over and …” I trail off lamely. Penny’s trying to find a new flatmate, but she’s not doing a very good job of it. She’s holding out for Agatha, who’s resisting with all her considerable might. To be honest, I don’t think she really believed I was leaving. I don’t think she’ll believe it until I’m actually gone. 

“Right,” Baz says, still holding the keys out in front of him. 

“I’ve got some of your stuff,” I say suddenly, just to break this excruciating silence. I can _feel_ him looking at the Watford t-shirt. I can also feel myself going bright red.

“I can see that,” he says, in this unbelievably smarmy way that immediately puts me on the defensive. Also, I’m so embarrassed I feel like my eyelids are burning. I didn’t think eyelids could do that. I'm still staring at the ground. 

“Well, I’m just _saying_ , I’m going to chuck out everything I’m not taking with me, so you might want to rescue anything you want to keep.” 

“Fine,” Baz snaps. “Fine, okay.” 

I walk inside and he follows, closing the door behind him; we traipse up the stairs and I have to shuffle out of the way again so that he can unlock the second door. 

Penny’s been gone for a week, so the flat looks like a werewolf’s been at it. A werewolf fond of knocking things over and picking up fish and chips from the shop down the road every night instead of eating endless beans on toast and cheesy pasta. I never realise how messy I am until I have a witness; if I lived alone Penny would probably come round to find me buried under layers and layers of takeaway bags and crisp packets. They’d put me on that horrible TV show about people who can’t stop collecting things. Not that it’s intentional. I really don’t notice. 

Baz has noticed. He’s looking around with his lip curled up a bit, like it smells. It probably does. If I’d known he was going to be here, I’d have tidied up a bit. I’d have actually put his things in a bag to hand off neatly to him. As it is, I’d actually not been able to make up my mind about what to do with it all; telling Baz I was going to chuck it had felt good, if a little vindictive, but in reality his stuff is crammed into various boxes in my bedroom or still sitting out on the floor with the remaining mess. 

“Just - sit down, and I’ll go and get it,” I say, trying to ignore how weird it is when he does sit. Baz Pitch. On my sofa. He’s not looking around any more. He’s not looking at his phone. He’s just looking at me. 

I practically run into my room to get away from him. I can’t decide whether I should take his shirt off and put something else on - is it weirder to keep it on, pretend I’m not bothered, or to hand it back to him still warm? - and I’m standing frozen by my bed when my phone rings. It’s Penny.

“Simon,” she says, sounding weirdly out of breath, “Have you checked the news?”  
  
“What sort of a question is that?” I say indignantly, but quietly, so Baz can’t hear me. “No I haven't _checked the news_ , because Baz is here and I’m trying to-”  
  
“Baz is there?” Penny says sharply. “In the flat?” 

“No, on the moon,” I hiss. “ _Yes_ , in the flat.” 

Penny makes a weird sound, like she’s sucked in some air through her teeth. “Simon, they held an emergency press conference. The country’s on full lockdown, from right now. Everybody has to stay exactly where they are. Nobody’s allowed to leave.” 

I swear so loudly that there’s no way Baz doesn't hear it. “Surely nobody will know, they won’t notice if he just slips out right now-”  
  
“ _Simon_ ,” Penny says sternly. “It’s a global pandemic. You are not the exception to the rule. I know it’s not ideal-”  
  
 _“Not ideal_?” I want to punch something. I actually might, as soon as I’ve hung up the phone. I wish I hadn't answered it. I wish I'd just given him his stupid stuff and sent him on his way before I knew it was illegal. 

“He can take my room,” Penny says quickly. “It’ll probably only be for a couple of weeks, and then …” 

I stop listening. I feel like my whole stomach’s just lurched through the floor. A couple of weeks. A couple of weeks trapped in the flat I was just about to be free of. With all my stuff in boxes. 

And Baz.

Aleister Crowley, I'm living a cursed fucking life. 

I think I say bye to Penny, but I’m not sure; either way one of us hangs up, and then I just stand there, overwhelmed with dread. Eventually I realise I can hear something through the door. When I push it open, Baz is watching a video clip on his phone. 

_“_ _... from this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home."_

He glances sharply up at me, looking as horrified as I feel. We both just stare at each other for a moment. And then we both speak at the same time.

_“Fuck.”_


	2. Chapter 2

BAZ

When Simon broke up with me, I had a raging stomach ache for six straight weeks. I honestly thought something had gone horribly wrong with me. I even went so far as to call Fiona about it, to ask her if she knew of any mysterious vampiric illnesses that I may have been stricken with; if they had American diseases that you could catch from touching too many sticky surfaces in Las Vegas. She’d just sighed.

“It won’t hurt forever,” she said, _much_ too kindly; I couldn’t handle anybody being kind to me then. I can barely handle it now. I hung up the phone after that conversation and cried until I fell asleep, hoping I’d feel better in the morning. 

I didn’t. 

I stayed in bed for a week, stretching the very limits of my thirst. I could only fall asleep between the hours of 6am and 11am, and spent most nights watching black and white films on obscure TV channels, becoming entirely nocturnal. Simon would have made a joke about it, something tragically obvious about Transylvanian cliches. I could _hear_ him saying it; his stupid laugh, my groan in response. 

It was probably just the sleep deprivation. 

When I wake up on the first full day of lockdown, it takes me a good ten seconds to remember where I am - in Bunce’s bed, my arms inexplicably wrapped around one of her pillows - and then I feel it all over again. That twisting in my gut. That hollow, relentless pain that I had always thought people exaggerated when they lamented their break-ups. 

Fiona was wrong. This _is_ going to hurt forever.

Last night Simon and I acted like we were two idiots stumbling about on a frozen pond, trying very hard not to put a foot wrong and fall to our dooms; once we’d established that yes, this was really happening, and no, I couldn’t just leave - Penny would murder us both - he’d pretty abruptly scarpered to his room. I sat on the sofa, feeling stunned, and then texted her.

_18:47: I don’t think vampires can catch viruses, Bunce._

18:48: You might still be carrying it though Baz

_18:48: I wish I’d thrown your keys in the Thames._

18:49: It’ll be ok

18:49: You used to like each other

18:49: Remember?

We used to _love_ each other. A hell of a lot of good it’s going to do us now.

We managed to avoid each other all night, despite the fact that it meant I went without dinner, and this morning Simon is having the world’s longest shower. He must be using all of the hot water in the flat, the building - probably in England. While he’s in there, my phone dies; I don’t have a charger with me, so I just stare stupidly at the black screen, willing it to come back on. When he finally emerges from the bathroom I force myself out of bed and into the living room to meet him. He’s wearing a different t-shirt, thank fuck. Watching him walk around in mine - something he _never_ did when we were together - was pure torture. 

“My phone’s dead,” I say, holding it up as evidence. “Do you have a charger?” 

“Not for that type, I don’t think - let me see if Penny …” he drifts off to her room, clearly glad of an excuse to get away from me. I listen while he rummages around for ages, probably dragging it out so he doesn’t have to come back and share air with me too soon. Eventually he returns, shrugging. 

“Sorry. Must have taken it with her. You can - you can use mine, if you need to tell people where you are.” 

He unlocks his phone and hands it to me. There’s a huge fissure down the front of it, so that you have to press really hard to get anything in the centre of the screen to work. Typical. My hand is shaking for some reason. I think I’m afraid of this phone. Afraid I’ll see a message I shouldn’t. I fire off a text to my stepmother and another to Fiona, and then hand it back to him as quickly as I can. 

“Is that it?” he says. 

“Sorry, I didn’t realise I was going to be timed,” I snarl at him. I can’t help it. I don’t know what he’s implying - that I don’t have enough friends? That I should have written them soliloquies? 

“Alright, you don’t have to - I just thought you might have someone else you needed to talk to,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “You can take it into Penny’s room, if you want to make a call.” 

Right. _Right_. He thinks I have a boyfriend. He thinks that just because he’s moved on, I must have as well. It’s impossible to tell why that hurts so much. I suppose it implies that there’s been a suitable enough mourning period; that I might reasonably be expected to have found someone else, and therefore that _he_ might have too. 

Simon doesn’t have a new boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Penny would have told me. I’m sure she would.

“I’m perfectly capable of arranging my own phone calls, Snow,” I say, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Fine.” 

“ _Fine_.” 

It’s been one night, and we’re already glaring at each other. I can tell he just wants to storm off to his room and slam the door, but we still have quite a lot of admin to consider. 

“I don’t have anything else to wear,” I say, gesturing down at myself. “There are only so many times I can cast _Clean as a Whistle_ in good conscience.” 

“I’ve got stuff you can borrow,” Simon says, going a bit pink around the ears. “And - a few of your shirts.” 

“I don’t have anything to do,” I counter. “I don’t have any of my books, or my laptop.”  
  
“Penny’s got books,” he says. “My laptop’s a bit fucked, but you can borrow that too. And we’ve got a telly.” 

“What will we do for food?”  
  
“I’ve got some stuff in the cupboards here. I’ll go down to the corner shop in a bit - they said we’re allowed to go out once a day if it’s quick, right? So I’ll just pick some stuff up then.” 

I’ve run out of things to complain about; or at least, I’ve run out of things I can say aloud. I can’t say, _but Simon, it hurts to look at you_. 

_But Simon, I’m still in love with you._

He tells me to make myself at home in Penny’s room - as if I haven’t done so already by sleeping in it - and then he disappears again, back to his own. 

It’s so strange to watch him open and close that door and know that I’m no longer welcome beyond it. It’s like an old folk story about vampires; I have not been invited in. I can’t cross the threshold. Except it isn’t some deep, ancient power that keeps me at bay. 

It’s just the fact that Simon doesn’t want me any more. 

I wander back into Bunce’s room and wonder, in my desperation, if there’s a spell to get my phone up and running again. I can’t remember one for charging things; healing, yes, but it’d be too much of a stretch to pretend my phone is in need of medical attention. I stare at it for ages, wand in hand, and then eventually try _I’ve got the Power_! It works, although it only charges my phone up to 30%. Penny would bang on at me for using something so dated and unstable, but needs must. 

I know I’ll become entirely unhinged if I just sit here thinking about this nightmarish situation for much longer, so I scan Penny’s bookshelves and then pull out some T. H. White - nothing Arthurian, the really depressing one where he tortures a bird - and settle down on her bed to read it. I made it properly this morning, folding over the duvet and fluffing the pillows, as if she might be about to appear and demand it back. 

I wish. I’d do anything for a buffer right now; something to take my mind off the fact that Simon is on the other side of the adjoining wall. He’s probably lying on his bed, wishing me gone, trying to magic me away with power he no longer possesses. 

I read the entire book, cover to cover. I pick up something else from next to Bunce’s bed - a gay romance that’s hideously pink - and read that until I can’t stand the heartfelt descriptions of falling in love any more. They make my throat itch. 

I unlock my phone, hesitate for a second, and then open the dating app that’s been the bane of my existence since I downloaded it a few months ago. 

I understand the concept of thirst, but I didn’t truly understand _thirst_ until I signed up for this hellish thing. Like most people, I had considered myself entirely above the whole affair, but I quickly found out - from Bunce - that nobody meets in the real world any more. She rather unkindly pointed out that I couldn’t expect all my relationships to be presented to me via crucible and subsequent formative years spent locked away together in a tower. 

I had winced at the word ‘relationships’, not yet ready for the concept of a second - of ‘relationships’, _plural_ \- and told her I’d rather set myself on fire than use a dating app.

I still haven’t ruled out fire. But I got so embarrassingly lonely that I relented, uploaded a photo of myself, swiped through a few tragic profiles and then closed the thing for weeks. By the time I was feeling morose enough to open it again, I had - to put it mildly - a _lot_ of matches. 

Penny insisted on taking my phone and doing some swiping on my behalf, which was probably a good thing, as I had refused to say yes to a single person so far based on their shoddily constructed biographies. Half of them were painfully earnest, and the other half were just endless streams of aubergine and peach emojis. They always listed their heights, and other numbers that I found entirely baffling until I showed them to Bunce. 

“I mean, what does ‘10’ mean? He thinks he’s a ten out of ten? He’s ten years old, emotionally?” 

“I’m going to let you go home and think about this,” Penny said, going quite red, “and if you still need to ask me, I’ll tell you. If you don’t, let’s never discuss this again.” 

I hadn’t needed to ask her, in the end. 

Sitting in her room, I discover that I have twelve unread messages; twelve little profile pictures with red notification lights blinking hopefully at me. I sigh and open each one like I’m checking under a rock to see if there’s something venomous underneath it. 

I may have given in to dating app culture, but that doesn’t mean I want to scroll through a criminal line-up of penis pictures every time I log in. 

I was halfway through conversations with some of these people weeks ago. The thought of diving back into any of them fills me with dread, but I choose one at random and send some incredibly impersonal message about the perils of lockdown. He replies quickly. We message back and forth until I’m so exhausted by the whole thing that I just press my face into Penny’s pillow and ignore the sound of my phone buzzing. 

It’s well past lunchtime, and I’m just thinking about how starving I am when I hear a quick knock on my door. 

I sit up so fast that I almost knock my phone to the floor; I grab it just in time as Simon peers in at me, looking wary. 

“I thought - lunch,” he says. Of course he ‘thought lunch’. That’s exactly the kind of singular thought he probably actually has; the all-consuming concept of lunch. 

“Right,” I say, getting up and hoping he hasn’t noticed the saccharine romance novel abandoned next to me. We walk into the kitchen and stare at the cupboards as if they’re going to present us with a fully-cooked meal. “What do you have?” 

“Er,” Simon opens a cupboard. “Beans. Soup. Pasta. Penny left some stuff in the fridge, but I don’t …” 

I open the fridge. The top shelf contains half a block of mature cheddar, butter and six eggs. The middle shelf has a jar of pickled onions with only two survivors floating in it, and the bottom shelf is empty. There’s a salad drawer though, and when I open it I discover red and yellow peppers, two courgettes, cherry tomatoes - sadly already moulding - and even a wilting bag of spinach. 

“Bunce bought you this?” I said, picking up the punnet of tomatoes and the spinach to throw them away. “Expecting you’d actually … eat it?” 

“I think she’s worried I’m going to get scurvy or something when I move,” Simon says, shrugging. “It’s all blokes in my new house. Dunno if any of them can cook.” 

“It’s not some requirement of masculinity to be unable to provide sustenance for yourself,” I say, taking out the courgettes. “I’m a bloke. I can cook.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.” 

We’re both clearly thinking of meals I cooked for Simon when we first got together. Pancakes. Homemade pizza. An attempt to replicate his favourite Watford scones. The carbonara he said was so good that he never wanted to eat anything else again. 

He’d licked sauce off his fingers and laughed when I said he was disgusting and then kissed me, cheese all over his chin. 

Towards the end of our relationship making meals for Simon was more a matter of necessity than anything else. Food was handed to him, he nodded his thanks and then ate it silently, usually lying on the sofa. He often had sauce all over his chin then, too, but nobody laughed about it.

“I’ll make an omelette,” I say, taking all the ingredients out and putting them on the counter. It’s still covered in so much detritus that I have to sweep things out of the way to make room; Simon immediately goes red and starts picking things up and carrying them over to the bin. We work silently for a while, him cleaning and me fetching a knife and a chopping board and starting to dice the peppers, and then he clears his throat. 

“Do you want me to - help?” he says hopelessly, gesturing at the vegetables in general. 

“It doesn’t really require two people,” I say. “But if you want to learn how to make one so you don’t end up fulfilling Bunce’s prophecy and dying of a fifteenth-century vitamin deficiency, I can show you. You can put almost anything in an omelette.” 

Simon looks torn between running for cover and being polite; surprisingly, the latter wins out, and he nods. “Show me.” 

I put him to work chopping the courgette and he frowns down at it as he works, his tongue sticking out a little in concentration as he tries to be precise. I think about telling him that it doesn’t matter if they’re all different sizes, but if evenly-sliced courgettes are going to be his sole achievement today, I don’t want to stand in his way. 

I’m just cracking the eggs when my phone goes off - my hands are full, but Simon reaches for it instinctively, and then drops it back on the counter as if it’s burning hot.

“Sorry,” he says, blushing and looking mortified. I finish with the egg I’m holding and pull my phone towards me. There’s a new message right in the middle of my lockscreen, and there’s absolutely no way he didn’t read it.

**_Theo M.:_ ** _You look so hot. Send more pics_

It’s from someone I’ve never spoken to before; somebody who clearly tricked me into swiping right with an innocuous profile before jumping straight to this cringe-inducing opener. Or probably one of Bunce’s terrible picks. Either way, I have never sent this man a photo in my life, and have no intention of doing so - but Simon doesn’t know that. 

“It’s not-” I start, but I have no idea what to say. I don’t owe him an apology. Or an explanation. 

“No, it’s - don’t worry,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, still bright red. “I thought you were probably, you know. Seeing someone. Shouldn’t have looked.” 

It’s my prerogative, I think, as the dumpee, to try to maintain some sort of upper hand. 

“I am,” I say. “Seeing someone, I mean.” It’s only half-true. I’m not _seeing_ someone; I _have seen_ someone. Multiple someones, but never the same someone twice. All from this terrible app.

Regardless of the person, it always follows the same pattern. I put on a good shirt, and brush my hair, and steel myself in the mirror before meeting them. Usually we drink, and I have to exercise all my recently-acquired self-control to keep my fangs from popping. Most of the time, they make a move on me. Very occasionally, I go back to their flat and kiss them with the lights off for a while, so I can touch them and be touched in ways that _Simon_ would never-

But that’s the problem. Simon is always there. In the back of my mind. No; in the front of it. I’d swap a lifetime of awkward fumbling with strangers for one more nervous, chaste kiss with him. 

I always leave before things go too far. Most of the time I hold it together until I’m back in my own bed. Then I let myself fall apart, as a sort of reward for putting myself out there - for giving it another go. I dig my nails into my palms and let it all wash over me, feeling every last shred of it, taking everything the pain has to give to me. 

Sometimes I whisper Simon’s name into the dark. Like a spell. Like a prayer. Like it might bring him back.

Of course, it never does.

He’s looking at me right now as if he has no idea how to process the information I’ve just given him. I suppose he must be relieved, in a way; this absolves him of any guilt he’s feeling. If I’m seeing someone else, I must be doing just _fine_. 

“Good,” he says eventually. “That’s good.” 

We finish making the omelette in silence. I expect Simon to drift off, to hole up in his room or go and stare determinedly at the TV until it’s ready, but he stands at my shoulder and observes each step closely. Watches me crack eggs against the rim of the bowl, managing it without a single stray splinter of shell; hands me the butter when I reach for it so that I can grease the pan; gazes intently at my hands like I’m creating life with them instead of the world’s easiest meal.

“There,” I say, putting the first omelette on a plate and handing it to him. “Even an idiot could do it.” 

“Where’s yours?” Simon says, looking genuinely concerned. “Aren’t you going to have one too?” 

“Calm down, there’s plenty left,” I say, returning to the beaten egg mixture to start the process again. Mollified, he fetches a fork and goes to sit on the sofa. 

I’m lying. I made his much too large; mine is going to be about half the size. But he needs it more than I do. By the look of this place, he’s not eaten properly for a while.

I think Bunce was bang on the money about the scurvy. 


	3. Chapter 3

SIMON

Of course he’s got a boyfriend. I mean, look at him. Why _wouldn’t_ he have a boyfriend. 

I don’t know how I could have expected anything else. 

It’s not fair for me to feel shit about this. I know it’s not. But I can’t help it. When I broke up with Baz, it wasn’t because I stopped loving him, or because I actually wanted to live without him. It was because I didn’t know how to be the person he needed me to be. I barely knew how to be the person _I_ needed _myself_ to be. 

I still don’t know, but I’m trying. And it wasn’t fair to drag him along while I worked it all out.

I think he thought it was easy for me. A relief. I suppose it was, in a very small way, but it also opened the door to fun new levels of emptiness and misery that I hadn’t known existed.

I haven’t even _thought_ about anybody else. Dating, I mean. My brain shuts down when it gets anywhere near the subject. Penny brought it up, once, but I think she knew it was a lost cause before she’d even finished the sentence. 

You can’t invite someone into a collapsing house under false pretences and then ask them to help you hold up the beams. 

You can’t fuck people up and then make them feel like _they_ failed _you_.

But that’s what I did to Baz, isn’t it? Every time I’ve thought about him for the last six months I’ve felt sick. I can’t tell why. Shame? Regret? Gut-wrenching misery at the loss of him? Pick one. Pick them all. I actually threw up a few times during that first week. It was like my whole body was rejecting something. 

I don’t think it was him I was rejecting. I think it was everything - the whole fucking mess of it, of us, of me - and he’s so tangled up in it all that I can’t separate him from the rest and work out exactly how I feel about him on his own, without the baggage. 

I know how I feel right now, on the surface at least. Sick to my stomach. It’s really annoying because this omelette is _so_ good and I don’t want to waste it, but it’s gone all rubbery and tasteless in my mouth. I eat it anyway, because - well, it’s food, isn’t it, and it’d be rude not to - but the whole time I can feel acid rising in the back of my throat. I can’t get my heart rate down. I’m staring at the telly but I can’t see a fucking thing.

When Baz finishes making his omelette I hear him hesitate, and then he comes carefully around the sofa and sits at the other end, as far away from me as physically possible. He’s got about half the amount of food he gave me, and I feel even more guilty looking down at my empty plate. I don’t even have anything left to offer him, to make up the difference.

“That was good,” I say, nodding to his food. He looks at me warily, and then returns the nod as he starts to eat. 

Baz eating is a whole production. He’s all smooth movements and delicate turns of his fork, like he’s performing ballet, not eating eggs. I used to love watching him, which he found extremely fucking weird. He used to say “eyes down, Snow”, and make fun of me when he caught me staring anyway. 

The thing about eating together was that it was so incredibly domestic that it made my heart fucking _ache._ It’s embarrassing, really - how many people get emotional about the idea of sitting opposite someone for half an hour and eating pasta - but I’d never really had that before. Watford was different, because as much as I liked eating with Penny, it was school; there wasn’t anything quiet and cosy about Watford mealtimes. 

This was something else. I’d watch Baz cook, usually with a tea towel flung over his shoulder for some reason he never bothered to explain; he’d call me over to taste a sauce or a soup, laugh at the expression of pure joy on my face when it hit my tongue, and then smirk and roll his eyes when I got impatient and asked him - usually more than once - when it would be ready. 

Then he’d put a plate of something down in front of me - something he’d worked hard on, something he knew I’d like - and we’d talk a bit, and just be quiet and eat for a bit, and sometimes he’d reach across the table and slide his hand into mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Which I guess it was. Until it wasn’t. 

Eating dinner with Baz was a window into a life I never knew I wanted, or could have, or could ever hope to deserve. And that was the problem. The more I realised I really _didn’t_ deserve it, the less I talked at meal times (or _any_ times, really). It felt like he was giving me too much of himself, when he spent hours making food for me and I couldn’t do anything for him in return. It felt shit. 

So I stopped watching him cook. He stopped asking me to taste things for him. He’d put his hand on the table, and I knew he wanted me to reach over and hold it, but I just fucking couldn’t. Eventually, he stopped trying.

I wonder if he cooks for this new bloke. I wonder if _he_ deserves it. I wonder if he can just accept it for what it is, and not have a fucking minor breakdown about it. 

I put my plate down with shaking hands and check the time. “I’ll get some more stuff in today,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Shop on the corner should have most things - what do you want?” 

Baz doesn’t even hesitate. “Wine.” 

“Wine?” I frown at him. “I didn’t think you really …” I trail off, because even though the Baz _I_ knew didn’t much fancy drinking, that Baz probably doesn’t exist any more. 

“Red wine. And some actual food, so we don’t have to fight to the death over those sad pickled onions. I’ll write a list,” Baz says. “Do you have paper? And a pen?” 

“Penny’s desk,” I say, and he nods and disappears into her room. When he comes back out, he starts writing immediately - a long list of things that he calls ‘essentials’ that I’d never have thought to get. He adds _red wine_ in his perfect slanting handwriting at the end. 

“Don’t just get the cheapest red,” he says. “In fact, in that shop, get the most expensive red. And get two bottles.”

“Alright,” I say, already dreading having to choose and the strong likelihood that I’ll get something crap and disappoint him. 

It feels weird to be outside, even though it’s only been a day since lockdown rules started. There’s hardly anybody on the street. It’s good, though; it means that nobody can see that I’ve gone all red and shaky, that I’m stomping down the pavement with my fists curled up at my sides like I’ve got a dragon to slay. 

Fuck Baz’s fucking boyfriend. Fucking hell. I should have left well enough alone. I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have looked at his phone. Then I could have pretended that he’s still as messed up over everything as I am. That we're in this together, even if we're apart. 

I know it makes me a shit person, for any part of me to want him to be sad and alone. I kept telling myself - and telling Penny, and even Agatha, when she’d listen - that I broke up with Baz because I wanted him to be happy. 

And I _do_ want him to be happy. I just don’t want him to be happy without me. But clearly he can't be happy _with_ me, either. 

Great snakes, I’m a selfish prick. He’s well shot of me. 

When I get to the shop, they’ve set up these stickers on the pavement to show you how far apart you have to stand in the queue so you don’t breathe your germs all over the other customers. I thought it might be busy, but I guess everybody else did their panic shopping last night; I just walk straight in. I get everything on Baz’s list except flour, because apparently that was one of the first things to get cleared out - honestly, it’s like the people around here live on a different planet, I don’t know why you’d panic-buy flour instead of something actually good like biscuits - and then spend about ten minutes in the wine section panicking about what to get him. 

The most expensive bottle is £14.99, which seems ridiculous, but in the end I get two of those as instructed and feel a bit sick when I watch the guy behind the counter beep them and see the price come up twice in a row. 

When I get back to the flat, Baz is taking a shower. I can hear the water running, hear the sound changing when he moves underneath it, and I stand stock still like I’ve been bolted to the floor listening to it for ages before remembering I need to put the shopping away. When I’ve finished unpacking everything I do the washing up, too, which is probably the first time I’ve done it in this flat without Penny having to threaten me with certain death.

When Baz comes out I’m just drying up, and the sight of him almost makes me drop the plate I’m holding. He’s combed his hair back, and it’s leaving wet patches all over his shoulders. He’s wearing one of Penny’s jumpers - this _ridiculous_ one that Shepard got her as a joke that says _WITCH, PLEASE_ across the front of it in massive letters - and the same jeans as yesterday. 

I’m already a goner. And then the smell of him hits me. 

Baz didn’t bring any overnight stuff with him, but he didn’t have to; there’s been a bottle of his shower gel sitting on our shelf since last summer. I couldn’t bring myself to use it or give it to Penny or throw it away - I just kept it there like the world’s saddest little shrine, and Penny knew better than to ask me about it. 

By rights it should be covered in dust by now, but it’s not. Because sometimes in the middle of the night I sneak in, lock the door and take it down off the shelf for a bit. I sit on the floor with my back to the wall and unscrew the cap and just breathe it in. Baz smell. Cedar and bergamot. The first sniff of it is always the best - or, the worst, really - and then I get used to it, and the next one doesn’t hit quite so hard. 

If Baz ever knew I’d been crying over his fucking shower gel, I think I’d die. But then, I think I might die right now. 

I clear my throat and turn to put the last dish away, mostly so that he can’t see the look on my face. 

“Did they have everything?” Baz says, coming over to open the fridge, wafting that fucking smell over me again in a wave. 

“Er - yeah. Not flour.” I say gruffly, trying not to breathe in. 

“Stands to reason. Everybody I follow on Instagram has already made about eight loaves of sourdough. Good to know that’s the herd response in an international crisis,” Baz says, a bit sneery. I wonder who these people are. The bread-makers of Instagram. I didn’t even know Baz _had_ Instagram. He always said it was stupid, before.

He finds the wine in the cupboard and immediately unscrews the lid off one of the bottles so he can pour himself a glass. He doesn’t say anything about the label. I don’t say anything about the fact that it’s only mid-afternoon. I picked up two six-packs of cider for myself, anyway, and I’m dying to crack into them, but even if Baz is drinking I don’t think I want him to see me with a can in my hand. He saw enough of that last year.

“Thanks for shopping,” he says, and then he disappears back into Penny’s room, taking the bottle with him. 

If he’s not going to be here to witness it, I think I _will_ have a cider. Fuck sourdough; _day drinking_ is the natural response to a international crisis. 

It’s really fucking difficult to go about my day as if my ex-boyfriend isn’t most likely getting wine-drunk a few feet away, but I manage it. I unpack some of the stuff from my room and find Baz’s things as I go, piling them up in one of the empty boxes. I’ve got six of his shirts, somehow - _crazy_ to have so many shirts that he fails to notice six missing in action - plus his Watford football jersey, a jumper, some books, and this ridiculous keyring that he bought in America that somehow ended up in my luggage on the way home. 

The first time I saw it, I wanted to throw it out of the window. He must have picked it up during his drunken meandering with Lamb. It’s this glittery red, white and blue monstrosity that says _I LEFT MY HEART IN LAS VEGAS_. 

As you can imagine, I fucking hate it. 

I don’t want to just go and deliver him a pile of stuff right now, so I open my laptop and watch mindless TV for hours while I drink. It gets dark, and I think about closing my eyes just for a few moments and then suddenly wake up with a dry mouth and a headache to the sound of knocking on my door. 

When I open it, Baz is standing there holding a bowl of lasagne with a fork in it. He hands it to me silently and then walks away. I think about going after him - sitting down at the table, trying to make small talk and pretend my head isn’t imploding - but I’m a coward, so I close the door and eat the lasagne on my bed watching reruns of _Friends_ and drinking yet more cider. Later, I listen at the door to make sure he’s not still out there before I sneak out to brush my teeth. 

I shouldn’t have napped in the afternoon, because now it’s impossible to sleep. I’m pretty drunk, too, which doesn’t help. I make an effort for about an hour before giving up and going back out into the living room, switching on the lamp by the sofa and waking up the Xbox. 

Last autumn Penny got so sick of getting up in the morning and finding me out here, having played all night and not bothered going to bed, that she threatened to cut the cables like some psychotic alpha-dad in a viral video. I didn’t stop. I just started being more careful; always making sure I was in bed by 7am, always cleaning up after myself so she wouldn’t see empty crisp packets and cans and know what I’d been up to. 

I like playing these violent American military shooting games. There’s something very mind-numbing and soothing about them. I tried to explain this to Penny once when she complained about how horrible and racist they were and she looked at me like she was going to have me committed. 

I start one up now, already feeling a bit more relaxed when I see the familiar menu screen, but then I hear something weird and I pause the intro to find out if it’s coming from the game or from inside the flat. 

It takes me at least a minute to figure out what it is. 

Baz is crying. He must think I’m dead asleep, or he’d be doing it silently; as it is he’s hardly loud, but I can hear tell-tale hitches of breath and snuffling sounds in the dark. 

I feel like my heart’s trying to jump out of my chest towards him and drag me with it. 

I know I shouldn’t, but I go to the door; I hear him make this tiny, animal sound, pure pain, and I push it open. He’s lying on his side, facing away from me, his dark hair fanned out across the pillow. The bottle of wine is empty on Penny’s night stand. He hears me come in; I see his whole body stiffen as he tries not to move, tries to pretend, I suppose, that he’s sleeping. 

I know it’s not a good idea. It’s possibly the _worst_ idea. But I defy anyone to watch Baz in pain and not want to do something about it. Especially after six cans of cider. I cross to the bed and sit down gently on the other side. Or, as gently as I can manage.

Baz sighs, a short exhale through his nose. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut. I don’t know what to say to him. There’s so much between us, this vast chasm of silence and past hurts, that it feels impossible to breach. I really don’t know why he’s crying. I thought he was moving on. I thought he was happy.

He doesn’t _look_ happy. 

“You can’t be here, Simon,” Baz says, and his voice is all tight and scratchy like he’s trying to hold back more tears, and I can’t fucking stand it. 

“Why not?” I say stubbornly. 

Baz laughs, another short huff of breath, but there’s no humour in it. “It’s just going to make things worse.” 

Sober, I’d probably agree with him. I’d probably say something awkward and shuffle off and leave him to it. But I’m not sober. And it’s making me far too bold, and much too careless. 

“Can’t leave you in here alone like this,” I say. I shift a little bit towards him on the mattress. He tightens his arms around himself, like he’s holding something back. Or keeping something at bay.

“You dumped me, Simon,” he says, and I know he’s trying to sound matter-of-fact but his voice is still all broken and hoarse. “This is what happens when you dump people. They cry about it. Usually they get to do it without an audience.” 

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, even though I know it’s ridiculous. I hurt him. I hurt me. I’ve been hurting Penny, too, come to think of it. It’s become a bit of a speciality of mine, lately. 

“I don’t know what you expect me to do with that information,” Baz says, sounding a bit annoyed now, as well as upset. “It hurts, Simon. It hurt then, and it continues to hurt. Please leave.” 

“I don’t want to leave,” I say. He shudders, and for a second I think he’s really angry, but then I realise he’s holding back another sob. 

I can’t help it. I put my hand on his arm. 

He starts crying again properly as soon as I touch him. I can’t stop now. I’ve made it worse, and I need to make it better. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I think if I just keep going, I’ll make it to a place where I’m a help, not a hindrance. I get up onto the bed properly. He just keeps crying and crying, and I lie down behind him, my hand still on his arm; I rub his elbow, trying to do _something_ vaguely soothing, and suddenly he turns to face me and presses his whole body into mine, knocking the air out of me with the shock of it. 

His face is buried in my t-shirt, pressed against my collarbone, and I instinctively wrap both arms around him and hold him there as he’s wracked with these massive, choking sobs. I can’t believe he’s actually here, letting me do this. I never thought I’d get to hold him again. It feels awful and amazing at the same time. 

“This isn’t fair,” he says into my chest, when his shoulders aren’t shaking quite so hard. “For fuck’s sake, Simon. You can’t do this.” 

“I know,” I say miserably, staring at the wall behind him, not loosening my grip on him. I haven’t been this close to somebody for so long. The last time I held Baz properly like this was probably when we were bleeding all over each other. “I know you have a boyfriend. I just-” 

Baz pushes away from me, and I let him go. He’s looking at me intently in the dark, his face much too close to mine. I shift my gaze to the ceiling. If I look at him now, I’m fucked. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” he says, and feel this jolt in my stomach that’s so strong I wonder if I physically moved with it, “but you still can’t do this.” Despite what he’s saying, he’s reaching for me again. 

I want to probe this, to figure out what the fuck he’s talking about - if he doesn’t have a boyfriend then who’s sending him those _messages_ , and why did he pretty much say he did? - but my shirt is literally soaked with his tears and I can smell the wine on his breath and I suddenly feel like the worst person in the world for doing this to him.

I used to love making Baz lose his composure. Rattling him and making him blush were my fucking favourites.

Making him cry is really, really not. 

“Sorry,” I say. I get out of bed so quickly that I almost trip over, and then practically run from the room. I don’t look back. 

I can’t stand to see him lying there, arms still reaching out, watching me leave. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the good people of the discord for helping me estimate how many party rings Simon could fit in his mouth.
> 
> Five months after writing this fic I have suddenly realised that Shep obviously ... shouldn't be at this party, canonically. Let's just pretend it makes sense, because I do not have the energy nor the inclination to fix it.

BAZ

I need to kill something this morning. I wake up feeling _awful_ \- it takes quite a lot to give me a hangover, but I’ve managed it somehow - and creep out before the sun’s up to go in search of something to drink.

It’s cold outside, but the crisp air feels good against my skin; unfortunately the more I wake up, the more vividly I can recall last night, and I wince as it comes back to me in flashes. 

Four glasses of that hideous wine. Burning my hands badly on the lasagne dish, and then just sitting and watching them heal as I drank the fifth and sixth. Simon’s face through the door when I handed him his dinner - sleepy, wary, like he’d forgotten I was even there, when all I could _do_ was think about him. Simon watching me from across the room. Simon breaking down all my defences like they were nothing. Holding me. Making me reach for him. He smelled so familiar - soaked with cider, too, but then that wasn’t exactly _un_ familiar - that I felt like my whole throat was burning as I breathed him in. 

I didn’t mean to drink myself into a hole I couldn’t climb out of and fall to pieces in Bunce’s bed. The problem was that after that much wine, I let my guard down, and started playing one of the most dangerous games of all: _remember_.

I used to do it all the time when we first broke up. I’d lie in bed, close my eyes and pick a memory with Simon - I took my time choosing, flicking through them like they were actually physically filed away in my brain - and then I’d just press play, and fall into one. 

Last night’s memory had been one of the hardest. 

I had been dreading my twentieth birthday, because Simon was already starting to slip away - from me, from Penny, from life - and the pressure of a special occasion on top of that just made me feel sick and hollow with nerves. I didn’t want to celebrate. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening, or that I’d forgotten, which would make it okay when _Simon_ inevitably forgot. It was self-preservation, I think. 

I hadn’t factored in Bunce. She loudly, brightly asked me a few weeks beforehand what I had planned, and I shot daggers at her and tried to ignore the fact that Simon had frozen in his seat. He _had_ forgotten, of course, and I could just see him torturing himself over it already, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted. 

“Not everybody reacts to a birthday like a five-year-old,” I snapped at Penny. “I don’t need fairy cakes and a tiara and a pervert-for-hire making limp balloon animals.” She’d just shrugged. I’d worried that I’d given her ideas. 

When the day came, I went home to Hampshire for lunch. Ostensibly it was to see my family - but I was avoiding Simon, too. Avoiding the fact that things would be difficult between us, and we wouldn’t be able to brush over it, because it was meant to be a particularly good day. He didn’t ask if he could come home with me, and I didn’t invite him. I saw Daphne and Fiona exchange a significant look when I turned up alone, but they didn’t say anything, and everybody went through the motions of wishing me a very happy birthday while I tried to smile and be merry and probably just looked like I had indigestion. 

That afternoon I just wanted to slope off home, but I had about twenty texts from Penny on my phone, each more demanding in tone than the last, so I reluctantly made my way across town to their flat.

When Bunce opened the door and saw the look on my face, she just grabbed me and pulled me into a bone-crunching hug. I stiffened in her arms but then gave in and pulled her closer to me and laughed when she said “Happy birthday, Basilton, but also _ow_.” 

Agatha was there, rolling her eyes at everything but smiling behind it, too. Shepard was there, helping Penny pour drinks and dole out cake and exchanging these soft little looks with her whenever the opportunity arose.

And Simon was there, doing his absolute best. He’d put a nice shirt on. Someone - probably Bunce - had trimmed his hair. Someone - _definitely_ Bunce - had told him to smile and put his arm around me and take a stab at the role of boyfriend for the night. And he did it. He put down his drink as soon as he saw me come in and made a beeline for me, kissing me on the very corner of my mouth and then reaching up to put a party hat on me. 

“Why did you let Bunce buy hats?” I said, my nose wrinkling. 

“Have you ever tried to stop Penny when she’s on a mission?” he said, scrunching his own nose right back at me as he adjusted my hat so that it stuck out at a jaunty angle. “There. You look like a gnome.”  
  
“Gnomes don’t wear hats,” I said distractedly, reaching out to slide a hand up the back of his neck, his curls brushing against my fingertips. “Their heads are the wrong shape for them. Too bumpy.”  
  
“I meant Normal gnomes. Garden gnomes,” Simon said, but he was also distracted, half-closing his eyes as I flexed my fingers in his hair. I wanted to kiss him properly, but I’d noticed these little tremors in him lately every time I did, like some part of him was flinching away from me. So instead I just smiled at him and accepted a drink from Bunce and we all stood around talking, and eating crisps out of bowls that Shepard kept refilling, and placing bets on how many party rings Simon could fit in his mouth (eight, although he almost choked and we all had to watch him hack up soggy bits of biscuit for about five minutes afterwards). 

I couldn’t believe how _nice_ it all was. We stayed up late playing increasingly violent card games and watching Bunce argue with everybody any time she lost, Simon rolling his eyes and leaning back into me on the sofa so I could put my arm around him. Agatha said her goodbyes at about midnight, and Penny and Shepard disappeared off into her room an hour later, trying to be casual about it while Simon and I raised our eyebrows at each other and laughed. 

Then it was just us. I felt nervous again, worried that it would all fall apart, that Simon would go cold and ask me to leave and I’d have to take the night bus home feeling bereft, surrounded by vomiting drunks, trying not to cry until I got off at my stop. 

Instead he took me by the hand and led me to his room. I was barely breathing, trying not to break whatever spell this was. He’d left the light on, and he told me to sit down in the middle of his bed and close my eyes, so I did. _He_ sounded nervous, too. I sat cross-legged and listened as he walked away, heard the _click_ of the light switch, and then he was on the bed in front of me, his knees brushing mine as he mirrored my position. 

“Give me your hands,” he said, and I offered them up immediately so he could take them into his own. “Okay. Okay. Now open your eyes.” 

We were _surrounded_ by stars. Everywhere I looked they were glowing in the dark, lighting the room faintly in fluorescent yellow and green. He’d stuck them all over the ceiling, the walls, the wardrobe; he’d even affixed a few to the lamp next to his bed. There must have been hundreds of them. Thousands, even. 

“Simon,” I said, trying to control the tremor in my voice.

“Penny helped,” he said quickly. “I didn’t think it’d take so long, so she - but it was my idea.” 

I couldn’t speak. I was so overwhelmed I felt like my heart was breaking open, but in a _good_ way. I was already getting so used to the _other_ way that I didn’t know what to do with all this joy. 

“I wanted to - in our room, at school, when I gave you my magic,” Simon said, as if I’d have forgotten. “ _Twinkle twinkle little star_. Except obviously I can’t do that any more. So I thought, this was probably as close as I’d - without a spell, I mean.” 

“Simon,” I said again, squeezing his hands as he bit his lip anxiously in the near-dark. “This _is_ magic.” 

He’d smiled at me, then. A _real_ smile. And then he’d leaned over, a little hesitantly, and kissed me. He'd pushed me back onto his bed and taken off my ridiculous party hat so that he could run his hands through my hair; so that he could gather up handfuls of it until my breath hitched in my throat and I was aching to pull him down to me properly. I held back, though. I wanted to be careful with him. I didn’t want to push him too far. 

Simon kissed me and kissed me, only stopping to clumsily undo the buttons of my shirt. He ran his hands slowly over my chest, and gently turned my head to the side so he could kiss a trail from my collarbone to my neck, and I looked up at the ceiling through eyes half-blurred with tears and watched the light from the stars fracture and dance all around us. 

“Baz,” Simon said, lifting his head and frowning, brushing his thumb along my cheek. “Why are you crying?” 

I laughed. “Because I’m happy, Simon. I’m so _happy_.” 

I think the reasons why I usually keep this memory buried _incredibly_ deep are pretty fucking self-explanatory. 

*

I don’t have to kill anything, in the end. Not really. I find a fox that’s been recently hit by a car - I feel a bit sorry for it, to be honest, which is a dangerous road to tread when your very existence requires regular animal slaughter - and put it out of its misery. 

I don’t go back to the flat straight away. I just keep walking aimlessly away from it, head down, gritting my teeth and trying very hard not to think about anything in particular. As dawn approaches, I start to see other people on the streets - key workers, people in uniforms with name tags - and I feel bad for taking up space on the pavement. I don’t need to be out here. I’m not a key worker. I’m just a broken-hearted imbecile who had too much to drink. 

By the time I get back it’s a much more respectable hour, and I’m hoping I can grab food from the kitchen and sneak back into Bunce’s room before Simon wakes up and then just hole up in there to wallow for the rest of the day - but when I open the door, I can smell something cooking. It smells _good_. 

Simon is standing over the stove, frowning down at something, poking at it with a wooden spoon. He’s got two frying pans on the go at the same time - an advanced move even for a seasoned cook, let alone a novice like him - and a saucepan bubbling away too. It’s incredible that the flat hasn’t already burnt to a crisp. 

“Shit,” Simon says, startling when he notices me standing there. “I thought it’d be ready by the time you - I was going to wake you up, I thought you were still asleep.” 

I cross over to the stove to survey the damage. He’s frying bacon and eggs at the same time, and both are seconds away from disaster; I rescue the bacon first, and he manages to salvage the eggs with one less thing to focus on. I reach to turn off the hob that has the saucepan on it - it’s full of baked beans, and they look like they’ve been hot enough to eat for quite a while - but he tries to do it at the same time, so our hands brush. We jolt them back and stand there awkwardly for a few seconds. 

Then the toaster pops, and we both jump.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” he says, very sincerely, and it makes me snort with laughter. I turn off the hob. He goes to get the toast - it’s burnt, and he looks crestfallen, but I take it from him and fetch a knife and scrape all the black bits off into the bin. By the time I’m done, he’s plated everything else up. 

“Snow,” I say incredulously, as it properly sinks in. “You _cooked_ _breakfast_.” 

“Er,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “Yeah. I googled how to do it. I mean, you did lunch _and_ dinner yesterday, so I just thought…” 

I take a plate from him. Faced with limited options - trying to eat on the sofa without spilling beans everywhere, carting it back to Bunce’s room and eating alone at her desk - I decide to throw caution to the wind and sit down at the table. Simon hesitates for a second and then comes to join me, pulling up the chair opposite and clinking his plate against mine as he sets it down. 

We eat silently for a while, and then Simon clears his throat.

“Baz,” he says, and I freeze with a forkful of egg halfway to my mouth. 

“Simon,” I say, but it’s more like a warning.

“I just wanted to say - about last night-” I cringe away from these words, potentially my least favourite in the English language.

“Simon,” I say again sharply. “Really. I don’t want to talk about this.” 

He stares down at his plate, his mouth set in a line. I recognise that face. It means he’s going to be stubborn and obstinate and not leave well enough alone. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, as if he’s trying to get the words out before I can interrupt him again. “I’d had a few drinks, and I should have listened when you told me to go. I should have realised that you set - uh, that you set a boundary.” 

_This_ is new. Since when did Simon talk in introspective platitudes? I frown at him, and then realisation hits.

“Simon,” I say tentatively. “Are you - are you back in therapy?” 

He sighs and looks down at his food. “Penny literally frog-marched me there when I said I was thinking about moving out. I think she hoped that a therapist would change my mind. I told her that’s not what therapy is for.” 

I didn’t think _Simon_ knew what therapy was for. He tried while we were together. I think he was expecting some magic fix, and when he walked out of the first appointment and nothing had changed he decided it was all a scam. I tried, very gently, to get him to go back. Penny tried not-so-gently. I told her off at the time - told her that she was just going to make him more set against it - but I suppose I should eat my words, now, if she’s actually managed to get him to talk about his feelings by force. 

“How many sessions have you had?” I ask carefully, starting to eat again so that I’m not just staring at him as we talk. 

“Dunno. Eight? Nine?” 

If he’s losing count, that’s a good sign. That means he’s not collecting a number so that he can present it to Bunce and say - look, I tried, but I went _this_ many times and it still hasn’t worked. 

“Do you like your therapist?” 

Simon actually _smiles_. “Yeah. He’s mental. He’s got about six earrings in one ear and none in the other and his office is full of really weird shit - like, stacks of obscure vinyl and rugs he got from backpacking trips. I didn’t think therapists were allowed to have personalities. Penny did all this research for me, or I’d never have found him.” 

I can't believe Bunce didn't tell me. I suppose she thought it was too private. I make a mental note to send her a gift basket full of literally anything she wants. Chocolate. Gold. Puppies. Chocolate puppies wrapped in gold paper. 

“That’s great, Simon,” I say earnestly. “That’s really great.” 

We go back to eating in silence, but I can tell he wants to say something else. It’s just a case of waiting it out. 

“Why did you tell me you had a boyfriend?”

It’s not the question I was expecting. I decide honesty is the only viable policy at this point. “I didn’t. I told you I was seeing someone. I have been … seeing people.” 

“Oh,” says Simon, going a bit red around the edges. “Right.” 

“Nothing serious, though,” I say, immediately feeling like I’m taking this honesty thing too far but ploughing on regardless. “Since you.” 

Simon visibly unclenches. “Oh,” he says. “Yeah. Me neither. I haven’t - not since you.” 

It’s going to be excruciating if we leave it at this. I get up to pour myself a glass of orange juice - I get one for Simon, too - and then sit back down. 

“Is Shepard with Penny at her parents’?” I say, and Simon snorts. 

“Yeah. She still won’t admit that they’re actually together. I think she’s trying to keep him at a bit of a distance, after everything with Micah, but - I mean, you know Shepard. He went home with her to do some research stuff with her mum and now they’re stuck there. He’s probably having the best week of his life.” 

“Poor, besotted idiot,” I say. Really, I think he’s lucky. If Simon and I had been trapped together in this lockdown at the beginning of our relationship instead of long after the end, it would most likely have been the best week of _my_ life, too. “How’s Wellbelove?” 

“I don’t know,” Simon takes his phone out and frowns down at it. “Penny’s probably been texting her, but I should - I should check in.” 

Agatha and I have fallen out of touch recently. Penny has dragged her along to our cafe meetings a few times, but we never meet of our own volition. We do follow each other on Instagram though, and sometimes exchange arch comments under her pictures. To be honest, my main motivation for doing it was the vague and pathetic hope that Simon would see them and be reminded that I existed. That he’d see something I’d written, and remember that I was funny - that we used to _laugh_ together - and that he’d miss me. 

“She’s probably thrilled,” I say. “Weeks and weeks without anybody around to bother her. They’ve made it literally illegal for Bunce to show up on her doorstep to harass her.” 

“I don’t know,” says Simon, shrugging. “I don’t know if I could be alone for that long. It’s good to have someone around to … bother you.” 

Our eyes meet briefly. He gives me a tentative smile, and then looks back down at his plate. We finish our breakfast in silence, but it’s not uncomfortable any more. 

It’s actually sort of nice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> British Smarties, not US Smarties. Google 'em.

SIMON

We’re not playing happy families or anything, but to our credit, we’ve actually managed to establish a bit of a routine over the past couple of days. 

I make breakfast. Usually it’s just eggs; I definitely bit off more than I could chew by attempting a full English, and I don’t want Baz to have to come running out of Penny’s room every morning to stop me from setting the place on fire, cos it sort of defeats the object. So I just fry eggs. I put on the toast, I get the juice out, I make the tea. It’s not rocket science. 

Baz still makes lunch _and_ dinner, although I usually help him with dinner. I’m not sure he actually needs my help. I think he just gives me a job so I can feel useful. Like you’d do for a toddler. 

Meals are the only things that get us out of our respective rooms at the same time unless we bump into each other on our way to or from the bathroom, but when we eat we sit down at the table like proper civilised adults; knives and forks, telly off and everything.

And we talk. Usually not about anything important. I tell him about the lads I’m meant to be moving in with soon - and they are _lads,_ massive footie types who express affection by smacking each other on the back and calling each other wankers - and he tells me about his last year at LSE, and all the uncomfortable career-choice conversations he’s been having with his parents. The subject of Penny and Shepard is safe mutual ground, so we laugh about them pretty frequently. 

I wash up, and he dries. We’ve got a good rhythm going. We don’t even have to talk about it, we just crack on and get it done, Baz always managing to reach for the next plate exactly when I’m done rinsing it. 

I try not to notice how much he’s drinking - it’s none of my business, and I know he’d be pissed off if he knew I’m keeping tabs on him - but it’s hard not to when the wine is just sitting right at the front of the cupboard whenever I open it. He’s on about two or three glasses a night, which feels like it’s probably okay. I don’t drink wine so I have no idea how strong it is, but he never seems that sloshed.

Still weird, though, that he drinks every day now. I think I only saw him drunk once the entire time we were together. He used to drink a bit at Watford when we were at each other’s throats - I remember a flask in his pocket, finding him drunk in the catacombs - but only when he was _really_ depressed and miserable. Only when he was basically self-medicating so he didn’t have to think about all the other crap. 

I don’t really want to join the dots, but it’s right there in front of me, and I’m not _that_ fucking stupid. 

When Baz was having a shit time of it at school, I was too wrapped up in my own melodrama to notice; even when I was obsessing over him, I misread all the signs to make them fit the story in my head. Like - Baz looks shattered? Probably up all night scheming. Baz looks pissed off? Probably because he got thwarted again, and he fucking _hates_ a thwarting. 

He seemed pretty happy when we first got together. It wavered a bit in the middle. Towards the end when there was no _way_ he was happy he tried ridiculously hard not to show it. When I think about it now, when I consider the fact that he’s still bloody crying about it six months later, I feel like there must have been loads of times that his heart was breaking right in front of me and I couldn’t - or wouldn’t - see it. 

But then, that makes the two of us. 

I can’t avoid his unhappiness now. Pretty hard to ignore your ex-boyfriend crying in the room next to you and drinking daily to stomach looking at your face across the dinner table. 

On day five of lockdown, I text Penny. 

**11:02: do you think baz was happy when we were together**

11:21: Simon, if you want to know - and I really cannot stress this enough - ASK HIM.

I think about it. Asking him, I mean. But when he knocks on my door and tells me that lunch is ready - it’s soup today, which I only know because he asked if we had a hand blender at breakfast and I discovered that apparently we do - the first thing he does is ask me something about pants, and my brain falls out of my head.

“What?” I say, knowing I’ve gone red.

“Pants, Snow. Underwear. Are you seven years old?” Baz says, trying to act like he’s not at all embarrassed by this conversation, but there’s a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that tells me he definitely is. “I need to borrow some. And I need to put all my things in the wash.” 

“Right. Right, of course,” I say, immediately trying to work out which are the most innocuous in my drawer. Can’t give him anything old and worn-out, or anything with a novelty print on it. They need to be sensible pants. Boring pants. Pants devoid of emotion or personality. “How come you didn’t ask me before?” 

He looks _really_ uncomfortable now. “I found other solutions,” he says eventually. 

I snort. “Don’t tell me you’ve just been spelling your pants clean all this time?” I sound like Penny. To be honest, _Clean as a whistle_ ’ing the same pair of pants for the best part of a week sounds like the sort of thing _I’d_ do. 

“No,” he says through clenched teeth. “I’m not _you_.” 

Right. Well. Fair enough. “What have you been doing, then?” I say, as I come out in search of soup. It’s leek and potato. _Fuck,_ it smells good. 

“I made you lunch,” says Baz. “I don’t have to answer your impertinent questions.” 

“I made you breakfast,” I counter as we sit down at the table. “Plus, I’m the one who holds all the pants. Can’t have any unless you tell me.”  
  
“You _are_ seven years old,” Baz says, narrowing his eyes at me. We start to eat, and then he speaks again, eyes firmly on his spoon. “I borrowed some of Bunce’s.” 

I choke on my mouthful of food. “You’re wearing her pants? Right now?” 

“Eat your soup.” 

“Did you text her and ask her? Can I see the text? Can I have it printed, and framed?” 

“My phone has been dead for days,” Baz says, rolling his eyes. Huh. I didn’t know that. I thought he was spelling it back on. 

“She’s going to have you drawn and fucking quartered,” I say happily. “I can’t believe you went through her pants drawer. I can’t believe you’ve seen her pants. I’ve never even seen her pants. I didn’t even like to think about her _wearing_ pants.”

“Everybody wears pants, you imbecile. And I didn’t go through her drawers, there was a basket of clean washing next to the bed.” 

I’m so distracted I put my spoon down. “Can’t believe you’re talking to me like everything’s normal when you’re _wearing Penny’s pants_.” 

“ _I’m not_ ,” Baz hisses at me, before regaining his composure. “I’m - not. Right now.” 

“Oh,” I say, confused. Then I realise exactly what he means. He’s definitely not wearing the pants he arrived here in. So if he’s not wearing Penny’s, that means ... he’s just not wearing pants at all. I’ve gone bright red again. “ _Oh_.” 

“Don’t have an aneurysm about it,” he says, looking a bit smug. No idea why. He’s the one walking around without any bloody pants on. 

After lunch I find a couple of innocuous black pairs for him and leave them on Penny’s bed while he’s in the shower. The box of his other things is sitting by the window; I notice that the key ring from Vegas, which was sitting on top, has vanished. 

I wander back out into the living room and then decide to watch something in here instead of skulking back off to my bed. I’ve just sat down when I hear the bathroom door open and close; I stare very intently at the TV, pretending I’m completely absorbed in the Netflix login screen, because I’m pretty sure that if I turn around right now I’ll see Baz strolling past in a towel. 

Life is confusing enough right now without throwing that image into the mix.

I flick through my recently watched shows, looking for something that’ll help me switch my brain off. Penny and I watched a _lot_ of Drag Race over Christmas. I actually found it oddly soothing for a show that frequently involved a dance move called a “death drop” - something to do with the structure of it all, maybe, the familiar patterns - so I pull up the latest episode and sink into the sofa cushions, cracking open a cider. 

“What’s this?”

I nearly spill my drink, and then reach over to press pause. I hadn’t expected Baz to come back out of Penny’s room - because that’s not the deal, he _always_ stays in there between lunch and dinner - and it’s even more confusing because he’s pulled his freshly-washed hair back into a knot at the back of his head, and he’s wearing one of the many floral print shirts I returned to him, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

What is it with forearms? I’ll never know. But I can’t stop looking at them. How long can you stare at a person’s forearms without answering them before they call for an ambulance? 

“Um,” I say, pulling my gaze back to the telly. “It’s Drag Race. You must have seen Drag Race?” 

“I haven’t,” says Baz, frowning at the screen (to be fair, it’s paused with someone in a highly compromising position). “Although everybody always seems immensely horrified when I say that.” 

“Well. I mean. It’s good. You can watch it with me, if you want,” I say, not expecting for a moment that he’ll say yes.

“Fine,” he says, like he’s doing me some big favour, and he comes to sit on the sofa next to me. I’m sprawled out over more than half of it, and I have to pull my legs in sharpish so that he doesn’t have to sit with my feet literally in his lap. 

It’s a weird show to watch in silence, like it’s a serious documentary or something. Can’t imagine David Attenborough narrating someone bending over to tuck their bollocks away so they can fit into their leotard. 

“How do they get rid of their eyebrows?” Baz says, frowning at the screen as all the contestants gather round for the mini challenge. It’s a new one, and it’s weird; they have to say something heartfelt and honest to win sewing supplies. Someone’s already cried about their dead mum to get some lycra. 

“Pritt stick,” I say. 

“ _What_?” 

“I dunno, they stick them down with glue and then paint over them or something,” I say, taking another sip of cider. “Can’t imagine that’d work with yours, though. They’d fight back.” 

“Nobody’s putting Pritt stick in my eyebrows, Snow.” He keeps calling me that. Maybe he thinks it keeps a healthy amount of distance between us. I suppose that’s why he did it at school, too, come to think of it. 

“You’ve never tried it? Drag, I mean?” 

“No,” he says firmly. 

"What, not even a skirt?” He could really pull it off. He’s got those ridiculously long legs. I immediately regret thinking about this. It’s all a bit much for a Saturday afternoon.

“Wearing a skirt isn’t _drag_ ,” Baz says, and he actually reaches out and _pokes_ me in the side. “Boys can wear skirts. You have very fixed ideas about what a bloke should look like, for someone who usually has a _tail-_ “ 

“So what you’re saying is,” I say, poking him right back (I go for his arm), “you _have_ worn a skirt.” 

“ _No_ ,” he’s reaching for me again, trying to get a good angle to jab at me with his fingers, and I wriggle out of the way. “Christ, you’re a man obsessed.” 

“Not obsessed. Just don’t believe you. You’ve only been here a few days and you’re already wearing _women’s pants_ ,” I grab his arm to still it and grin at him, feeling like I’ve got the upper hand. 

And then I realise that he’s closed the distance between us on the sofa, and I don’t have the upper hand at all; he’s looking _down_ at me because of his fucking height advantage. I’m holding tight onto his wrist, and he’s smirking at me very dangerously, and I’m _really_ not sure how we got here but there’s no way it’s a good idea. 

I feel this weird jolt in my stomach. If I was anyone else trapped in a flat with Baz, sharing a sofa and a look like _that_ then I’d - well, then I reckon I’d each over and kiss him.

But I’m not, am I? It’s me. It’s us. And we’re fucked up, and messy, and even though we’re tolerating each other right now we haven’t really scraped the surface of what’s actually going on here. This will create more problems than it’ll solve. So I let go of his wrist, and he retreats back to his corner of the sofa, and we watch in silence again until the episode ends. 

“We’re out of booze,” I say, getting up abruptly; Baz looks a bit startled, and slips down in his seat like I was holding him up. 

“Right,” he says, still watching the credits roll. I feel a bit light-headed and weird. I need to get out of this flat. I need to get some air. 

“Gonna go to the shop. I’ll get some snacks and stuff too,” I say. “We need bread. And … more wine?” 

“Hmm,” he screws up his nose like he can taste it already. “Perhaps not. Whiskey?”

“Whiskey?” I say, already imagining endless near-identical bottles with no way to choose between them. 

“They’ll probably only have one type,” Baz says, getting up and stretching. Why the fuck does he look so good doing that? Like a lion, or something. No. A _panther_. I bet I look like a pillock when I stretch. “Get a large bottle.” 

“Okay,” I say, already looking for my keys. It’s amazing how quickly you go from needing your keys constantly to having no bloody clue where they are for days on end. 

The shop is busy this time, and I have to queue for ages, getting more and more antsy the longer I stand in line. Being this close to other people is making me feel a bit hot and claustrophobic, even though I’m standing outside for the first time in forever. When they finally let me in, I’m so overwhelmed by all the different colours and the bright lights and the narrow aisles crammed with _stuff_ that I keep zoning out and forgetting what I’m there for. 

I manage to sort myself out in the end even though I feel queasy the whole time, filling up my basket and then trudging over to the booze aisle. Baz was right. There’s only one type of whiskey. It’s got a bird on the label and it comes in a litre or half litre size. I hover for a second with my hand over the bigger one, and then I grab the 500ml instead, feeling stubborn. I can’t stop him from drinking, but he doesn’t need a bottle of hard liquor the size of his head. I’m not _that_ hard to live with. 

I’ve got everything I came for, but as I’m standing in line to pay I reach out on a whim and pick up a packet of Smarties from the counter shelves. 

I’ve got an idea. It’s probably a shit one, but right now I’ll take what I can get. 

*

“What the fuck are you doing?” Baz says. I knocked on his door as soon as I’d unpacked the shopping, then pulled him over to the table and unceremoniously dumped the packet of Smarties out all over it. A couple of them fell off the edge and onto the floor. 

I’ll eat those. I don’t mind floor food. 

“Did you drink all my whiskey on the way back from the shop, or are you just miscellaneously unhinged today?” Baz says, crossing his arms. 

“Didn’t drink the whiskey,” I say, pointing at the bottle on the kitchen counter. “Just - sit down.”  
  
“This is _not_ the largest bottle they had,” Baz says, snatching it up and sitting down warily opposite me at the table. He unscrews the lid immediately and takes a sip from it like it’s a bottle of coke. 

“Right,” I say, clenching and unclenching my hands. They feel sweaty already. I wish I had a drink. I’m feeling more ridiculous by the second, and Baz won’t stop scowling at me. “Right. Okay. It’s a - it’s a game.” 

“A _game_?” Baz says, sneering over the lip of the whiskey bottle. It’s like the alcohol fumes have already made him meaner. “I’m not _this_ bored, Snow-” 

“Shut up for just - like - two seconds,” I say, and he raises both eyebrows at me but actually does. “I’m just trying to - it’s like the thing from Drag Race. You know? The challenge thing. You have to say something honest, and then you get - well, you don’t get pins or sewing scissors or whatever, you get a Smartie.” I’ve gone bright red. I feel like an idiot. I expect him to say something disparaging, but he doesn’t, so I just keep talking. “We could probably do it with booze instead, but I thought, maybe we … shouldn’t.” 

Baz stares at me. “You, Simon Snow,” he says, putting down the whiskey bottle, “want to play a game in which we … talk about our _feelings?_ ” 

“Yeah,” I say defiantly. I don’t need him giving me a hard time about this. Everybody’s been on at me for a bloody age to open up - Penny, my therapist, Baz himself back when we were together - and now that I’m actually offering to do it, he’s looking at me like I’ve gone mental. 

“Go on, then,” Baz drawls. “What great and unfathomable truths do you want to swap for children’s chocolate? What is it you want to tell me?” 

I really want to find his knee under the table and give it a good kicking, but it doesn’t feel in the spirit of the thing. “I don’t - can’t you go first?” 

Baz considers me for a second, then leans back in his chair and glares at me. “I’d like to tell you that this game is idiotic,” he says, picking up a Smartie and popping it in his mouth. I don’t feel like he’s really earned it, but I can hardly get him to cough it back up. 

I already feel hideously out of my depth. I have no idea why I thought this would help. We definitely should have been drinking. “I’d like to tell you that you should fucking shut up and - and trust the game,” I say, sliding a red one off the table and eating it. 

“I really don’t like Smarties enough for this to be a proper incentive,” Baz says, flicking one across the table at me. He picks up the bottle again. “If you wanted honesty, you should have bought _really_ good whiskey.” 

I pick up a Smartie. Fuck it. Now or never. “I feel. Er. I feel bad that you’re drinking. A lot more than you did when we were together, I mean.”

It looks like Baz is frozen mid-snark. He stays like that for a second and then slowly puts the bottle down. 

“You drink,” he says. “You drink all the time.” 

“Yeah,” I say. “I do. I mean, I’m not trying to _accuse_ you of anything, I just - I don’t know. It worries me.” 

“It … worries you,” Baz says, and of all the ways I expected him to look, somehow _angry_ wasn’t one of them. “Right. _Right._ Because _you’re_ allowed to drink endlessly every day for months on end, and refuse to get up off the sofa no matter how much Penny or I beg, refuse to go back to therapy or talk to anyone or do _anything_ \- and now that we’re not together, I have a few drinks and it _worries_ you.” 

Guess we’re getting stuck right in, then. “I’m just being honest,” I say, raising my hands in surrender. “I’m not trying to-”  
  
“You don’t get to pass judgement on any of this, Simon,” Baz says, still glowering at me. “I don’t think you’re the right person to give anybody else lessons on how to _cope_.” 

“Well I feel-”  
  
“No,” says Baz, grabbing another Smartie. “It’s my turn. And speaking of coping, I think _you_ think you’re doing this adult, responsible thing by uprooting your life and moving on like nothing ever happened - Normal job, Normal flatmates, kicking Bunce to the kerb - but actually you’re just running away. It’s like Wellbelove, moving to another country and thinking that somehow everything will be different. But it’s not. You can outrun everybody else but you can’t get away from _yourself_ , Simon.”

I feel like he’s punched me. My stomach is churning and I’m just staring down at the table, swallowing hard. 

“Shit,” he says. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want his pity. “I didn’t want to - I shouldn’t be angry with you,” he sighs. “I try not to be angry with you. I don’t always succeed. Obviously.” 

“S’fine,” I say, even though it’s obviously incredibly not. “This was a bad idea.” 

“No,” Baz says quietly. “It’s not a bad idea. It’s just - it’s just hard.” 

It’s not funny in the slightest, but I laugh. “It is _really_ fucking hard.” 

“Go on, then,” he says, nodding towards the table. “Hit me with your worst.” 

I consider for a second. “I think you pretended you had a boyfriend just to try to make me feel jealous,” I say, and he flinches a bit. Guess I’ve scored a point, though I don’t feel good about it. We sit in silence for a moment.

“You’re supposed to eat a Smartie,” he says, so I do. He picks one up too. 

“Maybe I did,” he says, studying it. “But I think it worked.” 

This time _I_ flinch. This is ridiculous. I should have just bought him the bigger bottle and one for myself, and gone to bed and refused to get out of it until they invented a vaccine. 

“Maybe,” I say. He snorts and rolls his eyes. 

“This is a game of _honesty_ , not vague grunts of-” 

“I really miss you,” I say, and I know immediately that I’ve fucked up by the expression on his face. I honestly don’t know where it came from. I guess he wanted the truth. There’s nothing more true than that. 

“For fuck’s sake, Simon,” he says, standing up and shoving his chair back. His eyes are flashing like he’s about to launch himself at me. “You’re doing it _again_. You can’t _say_ things like that.” 

I stand up too. “You told me to be honest-”

“Fine,” Baz says, his voice suddenly cold. He’s got his arms crossed again, like he’s trying to close himself off completely, but he’s suddenly _shaking_ with rage - it’s coming off him in waves, no matter how in control he wants to seem. “Do you want to know the truth? I’d rather set myself on _fire_ than stay trapped here with you for another second if you’re going to say things like that - if you’re going to hurt me just so you can feel like you got something off your chest.”

“I thought - you always wanted me to talk!” I shout. I have no idea when my hands ended up in my hair but they’re there, tugging at fistfuls of it as he glares at me. “That’s what I’m doing, aren’t I? I’m fucking _talking_ -” 

“It’s too late, Simon,” Baz says, his voice breaking. He looks like something in him is shattering, but then I think - _no_. That’s not it. It already shattered a long time ago. “You put me through hell and now _you’re_ ready to talk - I was ready to talk six months ago. A _year_ ago. You always thought you were doing the right thing by pushing me away because I couldn’t handle you fucked up, or depressed, or - or broken. But it’s not black and white. You’re not just _broken_ or _fixed_. It’s a fucking process. And I would have done it _with_ you.” 

“I don’t-” I’m so hot and cold at the same time, it's making me shiver; it feels like all my organs are trying to burst out through my skin. “I couldn’t ask you to-” 

“Yes you _could_. But you didn’t. You just cut me off and didn’t give me the choice. I couldn’t have carried on like that forever - and neither could you, and I _know_ that,” he takes a deep, shuddering breath, but he doesn’t look away. I wish he’d look away. “But you know what? I don’t think it would have been forever, Simon. I’d have put money on it. I’d have staked my fucking _life_ on it. It would have been difficult and horrible - and we would have had to work at it _every day -_ but I wanted to do it.” 

His face softens, and it’s so much worse than the shouting. “You didn’t - you didn't trap me, or trick me. I chose you. I _told_ you that. And even when it wasn't easy - I wanted to keep choosing you, every day.”

I feel like everything else in the room has vanished. I feel like I’m going to faint, or go off, or just cease to exist. Everything is heat and movement and sound, roaring in my ears. Baz is still looking at me. Baz is taking a step closer. 

“I don’t want you to miss me, Simon. I want you to _want_ me. And I’m _right here_. So what do you want?”

I blink twice. I take a deep breath. 

And then I throw up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emetophobia warning! Simon is quite ill at the beginning of this chapter.

BAZ

Simon Snow won’t stop vomiting. 

At first I thought _I’d_ done it - I thought I’d overwhelmed him so much with my accursed _feelings_ that I’d driven him to some magic-free imitation of Going Off - but after he threw up the first time (all over the floor), he apologised, took about two steps towards the bathroom and then doubled over and did it again. I was standing up by then, trying to help him, so quite a lot of it landed on me.

I really liked this shirt. 

I manage to get him to the bathroom and then hover uncertainly in the doorway, watching as he slumps against the toilet with his head resting on his arms, his shoulders heaving with effort. He looks pitiful. Five minutes ago I was shouting at him, laying every hurt feeling and long-suppressed grievance at his feet, and now I just want to reach out to him - to comfort him - but how can I, when I’ve just re-opened this wound that we were trying so hard to keep closed?

I feel like a monster. 

“Glass of water?” I say, my fingers tightening around the doorframe as I wait for him to answer. He’s breathing heavily, his curls plastered to his face with sweat. “Simon?” 

“Dying,” he croaks, and I snort. 

“You’re not dying, Snow, you’re - well, I don’t know what you are. Maybe it’s food poisoning.” I don’t know _how_ he’d have managed to poison himself, when he’s only been cooking eggs - _I_ certainly haven’t done it, I’m meticulous with food preparation and use-by dates, even though vampires can’t get food poisoning - but I don’t know what else this could be. Unless … 

“I need to borrow your phone,” I say, panic stirring somewhere in my chest. “Where is it?” 

Simon makes a sound like a dying dog (and I would know). “Table.” 

I make a swift exit and find his phone, abandoned amongst the Smarties. It’s locked. I hear Simon vomiting again in the bathroom and wince, waiting for him to finish before I return. 

“Passcode?” I ask from the doorway. He just moans. “I need to call Bunce, Simon.” 

“Birthday,” he says, muffled against his arm. 

“June 21st? Twenty-one zero six?” I try it. The phone remains stubbornly locked. “That’s not it.” 

“Yours,” he says. I stare at the back of his head for a second, uncomprehending. 

“My what?” 

“Your _birthday_ ,” he says with a shudder. 

“Oh.” I don’t have time to agonise over this development. I tap it in, 2402, and the phone unlocks. I pull up his contacts list and find Bunce - she’s listed as _P. Biddy_ for some Merlin-forsaken reason - and slip back out into the living room to call her. 

She picks up halfway through the third ring. 

“Simon?”  
  
“It’s me,” I say. “Bunce, Simon is ill.” 

“What?” I somehow _hear_ her sit up straighter. “What kind of ill, Baz?” 

“I don’t know,” I say, running an agitated hand through my hair. “He seemed fine one minute and then he just started vomiting - he won’t _stop_ vomiting. I thought maybe he just - but then I thought, I don’t know what the symptoms are? Of this - virus.” 

“Calm down,” Bunce says. I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me. I’m calm. I’m extremely fucking calm. “Have you Googled his symptoms?” 

“No.”  
  
“Well have you looked up the page for the virus on the NHS website?” 

“ _No_.” 

“Well what _have_ you done?” 

_“_ I’ve called you!” I half-shout, exasperated. “ _Help me_ , Penny, I haven’t been ill for - well, in living memory. I don’t know what I’m supposed to _do_. I shouldn’t have let him go to the shops, I shouldn’t have-” 

“Hang on,” she says. “And sit down and stop pacing for two seconds.” 

I resent the fact that she assumes I’m pacing, even though I am. I sit down on the sofa anyway. 

“Okay, Shep’s got the website up. Is he coughing? Or - _has_ he been coughing?” 

“No,” I say, listening for a second as if a cough might be about to suddenly manifest when called. “No, no coughing.” 

“And he hasn’t lost his sense of taste or smell?” 

I think about lunch, and those damned Smarties. He’d _definitely_ have complained - loudly - if he couldn’t taste them. Taste is without a doubt his most treasured of the five senses. “No.” 

“Okay - it doesn’t sound like the virus, Baz. Can you go and check his temperature for me?” 

_“What?”_  
  
“You don’t need to stick a thermometer anywhere, just - feel his forehead, see if he feels hot.” 

“He _always_ feels hot,” I say, and I hear Shepard snort in the background. “Fuck _off_ , Omaha,” I snarl, my fingers gripping Simon’s phone so tightly that I think the crack down the screen gets a little bigger. 

“Just go and check, Baz. We’ll stay right here.” 

“Right. Right, okay,” I say, slipping the phone into my pocket and walking with some trepidation back to the bathroom. 

“Simon?” He’s on the floor now, curled on his side with his hands pressed against his abdomen and his eyes squeezed tightly shut - just to add to the general joy of the situation, his wings and tail are back in all their glory, so that he completely fills the space between the base of the toilet and the bath. “Simon, I need to feel - Bunce told me to check your temperature.” 

He doesn’t reply. It’s really starting to frighten me. I crouch down next to him and reach out to press a hand to his forehead - he moans, and a tear slips out from under his golden eyelashes. He feels - well, he feels hot, but no more than usual. Clammy and a bit flushed, but I think that’s from all the vomiting. 

“You’re okay, Simon,” I say quietly. “It’s alright.” I remove my hand and he moans again.

“Hand,” he says through gritted teeth. “Cold.” 

“Sorry,” I say, but he shakes his head, one terse movement from left to right.

“Good,” he says. “It’s _good_.” 

“Oh.” I hesitate for a second and then put my fingers to his cheek - he turns his head into my palm and I feel more tears falling, hot and quick. I use my free hand to dig his phone out of my pocket. “Bunce?”  
  
“I’m here, Baz.” 

“I don’t think he has a fever.” 

I hear her sigh with relief. “Okay. It might just be a twenty-four hour bug, Baz, they always go round this time of year. There isn't really a spell for this. Just keep an eye on him, and make sure he’s drinking water, and - ring me again if he gets any worse.” 

“Thanks. Thank you, Penny.” 

“Basil,” she says gently. “It’s okay. Really. He’ll be okay.” 

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I say forcefully, and I really mean it. Bunce laughs as she says goodbye.

“I have to get up, Snow. I’ll be back in five minutes.” Simon makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a whimper as I leave. 

I clean up in the living room, trying not to breathe or think too hard about what I’m doing, and then I wash my hands _extremely_ thoroughly and pour Simon a glass of water. I’m just about to go into Bunce’s room in search of clean clothes when I hear him calling my name.

I rush into the bathroom, terrified that he’s somehow worse - although I can’t imagine _how_ \- and find him trying to get up, groaning with effort. 

“Stop,” I say sharply. “Simon. What are you doing?” 

“Wing,” he says, eyes still closed, pain written all over his face. “Bloody _wing_ \- trapped.” 

His wing is pinned underneath him at a strange angle - I get down on my knees in front of him and heave him upwards to free it, and he ends up practically in my lap, his head pressed between my neck and my shoulder. He seems to have no inclination to move. I suppose I can’t object to it, either, unless he’s going to start vomiting again. 

“Drink this,” I say, reaching behind me for the water and trying to hand it to him - he’s got both arms around me, and he refuses to let go to take it, so I gently push his face away from my ruined shirt and press the glass to his lips. “Fucking _drink it_ , Snow. I’m not doing this for my own sick amusement.” 

He does, although he manages to get most of it down his front. Then he goes back to clinging onto me like a newborn. I sigh and scoot over so that my back’s against the bath and then just let him stay there, shaking, breathing heavily against my neck. 

We sit like that for a while, with me occasionally picking up the glass again to get him to drink. Under different circumstances the whole thing might be considered romantic but we are both, quite frankly, disgusting. The smell is unbearable. 

“Simon,” I say eventually. “I think you should go to bed. I’ll bring you a bucket to vomit in, won’t _that_ be delightful? But first I think - you need to get clean.” 

He grunts against my chest, which I take as agreement. 

He tries very pathetically to take off his own jeans and t-shirt but in the end I have to do it for him. I get my shoulder under his so that I can lift him up into the bath, but when I deposit him in it and reach to turn on the shower, his hand stays firmly on my arm. He has a surprisingly strong grip for someone currently incapable of undoing a button. 

“Don’t go,” he says quietly, and I sigh. He looks completely broken, crumpled against the tiles with one of his wings half-extended behind him, his face sheened with sweat and a greyish pallor that contrasts alarmingly with his usually golden skin. I don’t _want_ to go. But I don’t want to stay. It’s too much - too _intimate_ \- too difficult to pretend I don’t love him, when he needs me like this. 

I’m damned either way. So I stay. 

I take off my own shirt and jeans and climb into the bath next to him, turning the water on and then sitting down beside him as it sprays over both of us. He leans his head against me again and I put an arm around him automatically, drawing him closer, careful not to pinch his wings against the wall with my shoulder as the water runs in rivulets down his face. He’s crying again, but I think we’re both pretending that it’s just the shower. 

Afterwards I help him back out and wrap him in a towel, taking nearly all of his weight as I lead him into his bedroom. I'm not too preoccupied to notice how odd it feels being back in here, crossing this threshold again, everything immediately familiar even after so much time away. Some of his things are in boxes, but otherwise it’s the usual Simon chaos. I manage to pull a fresh t-shirt down over his head and get him into bed properly, and then I go for a change of clothes myself - Bunce’s tracksuit bottoms and another one of her ludicrous jumpers, it can’t be helped - and refill his water. I also pick up a large salad bowl from the cupboard. 

It’s not like he or Bunce ever actually eat _salad_ , anyway. 

“How are you feeling?” I ask, putting both the glass and the bowl down on his bedside table. 

“Shit,” Simon mutters. I pulled the covers right up to his chin, and I don’t think he has the energy to move them. “Hurts. To talk.” 

“Then shut up,” I say, not unkindly. “Go to sleep.” 

“‘K,” he says obediently. He’s shivering, but when I reach out to touch his face again, he still feels a normal human temperature. Probably just exhausted from enthusiastically ridding his body of my truly excellent leek and potato soup. 

I don’t want to leave him alone in here in case he starts vomiting again and accidentally chokes himself. It certainly _sounds_ like something he’d do. I return to Bunce’s room for a book - I started Anne Carson’s _An Oresteia_ last night, and a Greek tragedy certainly feels appropriate right now - and come back in to find Simon exactly as I left him. Still shaking, still slightly the wrong colour, but breathing a little more evenly now. 

Simon has a chair in the corner of his room, but it’s never actually functional as a seat - I always used to mock him for piling it high with clean laundry and discarded jackets, and it’s no different now. I remove the mess of his things, arranging them carefully on top of his chest of drawers, and then pull the chair to the end of his bed and settle in to read. 

*

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up, but it’s dark outside and the book has slipped from my lap and onto the floor. I feel discombobulated and caught off-guard until I realise what woke me; Simon is sitting up in bed, holding the half-empty glass of water, watching me. 

“Hi,” he says weakly, and I feel relief flood my body. 

“You’re better,” I say, and he responds with the tiniest of shrugs. 

“Not better. Still feel fucking _grim_ , but - don’t think I’m gonna be sick again.” 

“Good,” I say, rubbing my eyes and leaning back in the chair.

“That was fucking embarrassing,” he says, and I snort. He lies back down, easing himself delicately as if his muscles are sore. “Baz - you can go back to your room, you don’t have to sit there all night.”

“I’m extremely comfortable,” I say, crossing one leg over the other and affecting an air of leisure. 

“No you’re not.” 

“Vampires sleep upright.” 

“No they don’t.” 

“I’m actually asleep right now, Snow. This is sleep-talking.” He sighs and closes his eyes. We sit in silence for long enough that I think he’s probably gone back to sleep, and I reach for my book again. 

“I’m sorry you had to do this,” Simon whispers, stopping me in my tracks. 

“I really don’t mind.” 

It’s a while before he speaks again, his voice still so quiet it’s barely audible. “What you said earlier - before - Baz, I never wanted you gone-” 

“Simon,” I say quickly. “Let’s not talk about this now. We’ll talk in the morning. Okay? Not now.” 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” Silence again. Then: “Will you come here?” 

My throat tightens. “What,” I say, feigning disgust, “and get vomited on?” 

Simon groans with embarrassment. “Think I already did that.” 

“No you didn’t,” I lie. The sensible part of my brain - the part that protects me, that keeps me safe from harm - is telling me to stay right here, or go back to Bunce’s room, but somehow I’m already halfway to his bed. I ease in next to him, careful not to touch him, rearranging his pillows to support his wings and then lying down as far away from him as possible without falling off the edge of the mattress. 

I know that if I turn over right now - meet his gaze, put an arm around him - he’ll fall into me and hold me and _need_ me and I’ll be completely lost. So I stay on my back, staring up at the dark ceiling, remembering a time when Simon lit it up with stars to tell me, without words, that he still loved me.

*

I wake up before him the next day. I make him plain toast and pour him another glass of water, find painkillers in the bathroom, then leave it all on his desk, swiping his phone charger so that I can take it out into the living room and charge up his mobile to call Bunce back. 

“Baz?” She picks up immediately, despite the fact that it’s seven o’ clock in the morning.

“He’s fine,” I say, and she lets out a long breath of relief. “I think you were right, it was some sort of bug, but he slept all night and he looks much better now. He’s the right colour, at least.” 

“Merlin and Morgana, I thought you were calling with bad news.” 

“You said he’d be fine!” I say accusingly. “You said not to worry!” 

“Well I didn’t _know_ that, did I? I just hoped.” I hear a rustling sound, like she’s sitting up in bed. “Are _you_ okay?” 

“Of course. I can’t get viruses, or - mysterious and endlessly disgusting stomach bugs.” 

“That’s not what I mean, Basilton.” 

I hate it when she does this. Half the time I think she’s so wrapped up in her own head that she wouldn’t notice if I _also_ sprouted wings and a tail, but then she cuts me to the quick with something insightful and I feel like I should have been keeping a closer eye on her. 

“It’s been - difficult,” I say, and to my horror my voice is breaking. “Being here. With him.” 

“Oh, Baz. Have you talked? Properly?” 

“Sort of. Not really. We were almost - well - but then I told him I still wanted him, and he responded by vomiting on me.” 

“I see.” I scrub a hand across my face, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. 

“He’s a nightmare. I can’t stand another day of this. He acts like things have changed - he told me he _misses_ me - but I can’t do this again. I can’t let myself feel hopeful and then have it all taken away from me because he’s always holding something back.” I’m crying, but I don’t think Bunce can tell. I _hope_ she can’t tell. 

She sighs. There’s quite a long pause. 

“What?” I say, wiping my cheek furiously with the back of my hand. 

“I can’t tell you that he’s ready for you now,” she says carefully. “It’s not for me to say, and I don’t _know_ that for sure, Baz. But … we both know he never stopped loving you.” 

I close my eyes and press the phone tightly to my ear, letting my tears fall freely. 

“I didn’t know that,” I say quietly. “ _I didn’t know that_ , Penny.” 

“Well,” she says, and I can tell she’s frowning. “Now you do.”

“It doesn’t matter if he loves me,” I say, and there’s no way Bunce doesn’t know I’m crying _now,_ “It doesn’t matter - if he doesn’t know how to _be_ with me.” 

“I know,” says Penny, and if I didn’t know better I’d think _she_ was crying too. “But it’s _Simon_. He never knows what to do. He just tries the first thing that comes into his head, and usually gets it wrong, but - he always tries again eventually. I think - Baz, I think he got hurt and scared and - it’s just taking him a little longer this time.” 

*

Simon stays in bed all day. I bring him plain food - more toast, rice, an apple to try to fight off the scurvy when he feels up to it - and then when I come to tell him that dinner is ready, a sort of bastardised pho that’s really just broth and noodles, he actually gets out of bed to come and eat it. I help him to the sofa and insist on fetching a blanket; he grumbles at me as I tuck it around him, but lets me do it anyway. 

We sit eating our broth, slurping companionably - well, _he_ slurps, I’ve never been caught slurping in my life - and then he sighs. 

“Wish I could play Xbox. Stupid hands are still all shaky.” 

“Truly a tragedy,” I say, rolling my eyes. 

“You should play. I’ll show you. I just want to watch, really, anyway.”  
  
“You want to watch me play a video game?” I say, raising an eyebrow at him. “I’ve never played. I’ll be terrible.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” says Simon. “S’fun to watch. Soothing.” 

“Fine,” I say, reaching over to switch the console on. 

He’s a terrible teacher. He expects me to read his mind, and then gets frustrated with me when I don’t. I keep dying in ridiculous ways, and each time he sighs and tells me far too late what I should have done to avoid it. It’s good to hear him obstinate and argumentative, though - it means he must be feeling much better - so I keep playing, keep running headlong into ambushes and traps and snapping at him when he tells me “maybe just - don’t do that.” 

“Should’ve blown his head off,” he mutters sleepily as I’m killed by the same hulking mercenary for the sixth time in a row.

“This game is barbaric, Snow,” I say, and he sighs happily, closing his eyes. 

“Not like we haven’t ripped off a few heads in our time,” he says, and I snort. 

“Yes, but we did it the old-fashioned way - with fire and swords and our own two bare hands.” He doesn’t reply.

I finally manage to beat the soldier who’s been giving me such trouble and turn to tell him, feeling quite genuinely pleased with myself for this ridiculous achievement because I know he’ll be proud, but he’s already fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PYLADES: I’ll take care of you.  
> ORESTES: It’s rotten work.  
> PYLADES: Not to me. Not if it’s you.
> 
> (From Anne Carson’s 'An Oresteia', because I'm a cliche).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to [@tbazzsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artescapri/) for beta-ing the last chapter of this emotional rollercoaster. 
> 
> I had no idea when I started this fic that it'd end up being so much about food, and caregiving, and all the ways we try to look after each other and ourselves (especially right now). Retrospectively, I'm a fool; how could any fic about Simon Snow during lockdown _not_ be about food? 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading & for all your comments. Take care of yourselves! Eat a Smartie!!

SIMON

  
  


I didn’t mean to fall asleep on the sofa. I don’t remember doing it; last thing I remember is Baz fucking up the level again. I was gonna say something to him about tactical retreat, but now I’m blinking awake and it’s clearly morning and neither of us made it back to our beds.

He’s curled up asleep opposite me, legs pulled up underneath him; there’s a shaft of morning sunlight flickering across his chest, changing shape as it filters through the leaves of the tree outside, and first I think: _shit_ , if the sun moves it’s gonna hit his face and start to sting, and then I think:

Shit. I am so horribly, painfully in love with him.

Emphasis on _painful_. It hits me so hard it knocks the breath out of me, and I have to sit there for a while trying to get my heart rate down to a normal level; just watching Baz breathe and trying to match the rise and fall of his chest. 

He looks shattered - he hasn’t fed for a couple of days so he must be thirsty, and you can see it in the dark shadows under his eyes and the lack of colour in his lips. He looks worn down, worn out, and I feel like scum of the earth because it’s all my fault. He’s given me so much. Not just in the past week. Not even just in the past year. 

All I want to do right now is offer myself up to him - anything I can do, anything I can give - and say, _take it_. It’s not much, but you can take what’s there. It’s yours. 

I have made a monumental fuck-up for the ages, and this time I don’t know if I can fix it. I don’t know if there’s anything left there to fix.

I get up carefully, trying to be quiet, and grab my phone from where it’s sitting on the arm of the sofa. Then I pad into my room and close the door slowly, so the only noise it makes is a _click_ as the latch engages. 

I try not to think about Baz sitting in my room the other night. I tried not to think about him in here at all after we broke up, so it’d all go back to just being a room and a bed and a pillow. But the chair he slept in night before last is still there, some pretentious Greek book of Penny’s trapped between the cushion and the arm, so there’s no denying it.

He was here. 

He was here when we first got together, letting me cry into his shoulder. He was here when we were happy - when things still seemed like they might be okay. He was here a year later, staring at me from his side of the bed, even when I wouldn’t turn around to face him. 

I don’t know what I imagined it would be like, being Baz’s terrible boyfriend. I was so fucked up after everything that happened at Watford that it wasn’t something I actually needed to think about - he was just around, all the time, whenever I needed him. Then the dust settled and I realised that wasn’t a relationship - someone looking after you, and feeding you, and texting you at midnight to tell you to go to sleep. That was more like - I dunno, a nurse, or a fucking emotional support animal. For it to be a relationship, I needed to give something _back._

It didn’t help that Baz was nothing like I expected, either. He was still snarky and sarcastic, still ready with a cutting put-down whenever the occasion called for it, but those were usually directed at the others, not at me. He acted like I was fragile - like he was scared of moving too quickly in case I startled like a wild animal - and the more he did it, the more frustrated I got. 

Sometimes it was nice, though; the softer side of Baz. Sometimes we’d be tangled together on my bed, and I’d push through the fog in my brain hard enough to look at him and see how _beautiful_ he was, how gut-wrenchingly _perfect_ , and - I’d actually want him. _Want_ him want him. I’d pull him to me and kiss him and run my hands over the planes of his shoulders, down the cool skin of his arms, and he’d melt into the mattress and look up at me with these naked, pleading eyes that made me want to do all manner of deliciously fucked-up things with him - to him - just to keep that expression on his face. 

We tried. A few times. But I kept getting in my own way. 

We usually argued a bit, afterwards. Or - I argued, and Baz just replied in this infuriatingly calm voice, and I’d get so worked up and boil over with so much misdirected anger that I’d give up on words and just get up to leave the room. He used to stop me. 

He’d reach out and grab my arm and say “stay, Simon,” softly into the darkness, and I’d half-heartedly try to wrench myself out of his grip; but when he let go I’d sit back down next to him anyway, because I didn’t really want to leave. I’d let him rub soothing circles into my back, and hold my hand, and generally act like I was made of porcelain instead of what I was _actually_ made of, which felt more like molten glass. 

It all just felt wrong. Not _him_ \- he couldn’t be wrong if he tried. Me. I was wrong. Wrong for him. Wrong for myself. 

My therapist told me that there’s no right way to be a person. I kept telling him over and over again that I didn’t know what I was meant to be, now; what people _expected_ of me. I told him back in our first session that I liked to make lists, and a few weeks ago he said, okay: so maybe it’s time to make one. 

“You spend a lot of time telling me what you don’t know,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs jauntily - I got distracted for a second because he had Elmo socks on, which I thought was a bit creepy for a mental health professional, but he’d probably say it was ironic - “So - tell me what you _do_ know about yourself, Simon.” 

“Er,” I said, feeling hot and itchy all over. “I dunno.”  
  
“Humour me,” he said. “Give it a go. Just one thing, if not a list.” 

“I get angry,” I said. “I get really angry sometimes. A lot of the time. Although lately it feels … like it skips straight from angry to just, like - rocks. In the bottom of my stomach.” 

“Angry at who?”

I scrubbed a hand across my face, not wanting to look him in the eye. “Um. At myself.” 

“Why? What have you done to earn such great and terrible wrath?” He talks like this a lot. Like he’s in a play. Sometimes I find it annoying, but it’s alright on the whole. 

“I let people down,” I said, staring fixedly at my hands. “There are people I was supposed to protect, and I didn’t - I couldn’t. I failed. I’m a failure. I got things wrong. I fucked a lot of things up.” 

“Right. We’ve talked a bit about this, haven’t we. About what happened at school.” I haven’t given him the full version of events, obviously. He’s Normal. But Penny helped me work out something halfway; something that means I can tell him how I feel, and how wildly fucked-up everything got, without having to mention wings or spells or anything even remotely Insidious. “Simon, what would you say to your eleven-year-old self if you could talk to him, right now?”  
  
I almost laughed, because I knew exactly what I’d say to him. I _had_ said it to him, hadn’t I?

“That I’m sorry,” I said. “That - well, my life got a lot better after that. But when I was eleven I didn’t know that yet. It had just been really hard, and really shit, for a really long time.” 

“Was that child a failure?”  
  
“No,” I said quickly, thinking of the Humdrum’s face - _my_ face - the way he squinted at me like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, that he couldn’t imagine ever getting to be a bloke with friends and a purpose and a sword. “No, he was just - lonely. He wanted someone to … to look after him, I guess. Everybody had let him down.” 

“What would you say to your fifteen year-old-self, Simon?” 

I thought about it for a second. Fifteen. Already fighting a million battles, and following Baz around every spare second I had, convinced that he was leading me to something big. An answer. Something to make sense of everything that was happening. I guess he was, even if I didn’t know it at the time. 

I didn’t sleep much when I was fifteen. I don’t even remember celebrating my birthday. I think Penny and Agatha conspired with Cook Pritchard to make me a cake, and I grabbed a slice of it on my way out of the door to follow Baz down to the Catacombs. 

“I’d say - I guess I’d say that it’s alright to rest,” I said, trying to picture my face in fifth year. It’s all such a blur. That whole year. The year after. “That I can sleep, y’know. It felt like the world would end if I sat down for a minute. It felt like it was all on my shoulders. But I think I could have. Sat down, I mean. There was time. I had - I had more time, in the end, than I thought.” 

“Indeed,” he studied me for a second, steepling his hands on his knee. “Simon, I know this is difficult, but I’ll just ask one more thing of you; what would you say to your eighteen-year-old self? After what happened?” 

I generally tried really hard not to think about the White Chapel. I’d spent years burying it, and I immediately felt angry at him for asking; for trying to strip back everything I’d done to keep it safe and muffled and distant. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the simmering of my stomach.

I pictured myself in that stupid grey suit. Covered in blood. I thought about Ebb, crumpled on the ground. I saw the Mage’s face, as he-

“No,” I said, shaking my head. It felt like my chest was about to split open; like I’d been running a marathon, not sitting for almost an hour in that stupid leather chair. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just - can’t.” 

“Why don’t you tell him what you told your eleven-year-old self, Simon? Or your fifteen-year-old self?” 

“It’s not-” I started, then clenched my fists and tried again. “It’s not the same.” 

“Try, Simon. You were still the same person when you were eighteen; perhaps you still needed to hear it. Better late than never.” 

I pictured myself in that suit again. Not the Chapel, or the bodies on the floor, or even Penny and Baz. Just me. 

“Take a deep breath, Simon. What would you like to say to your eighteen-year-old self?” 

“You’re just a kid,” I said, my throat suddenly thick and tight. “You just wanted someone to take care of you.” I took a shuddering breath. “You took on too much, you thought you had to be everything to everybody - to the whole _world_ \- but you can’t carry all that. And - and it’s okay to rest, now. You can rest.” 

I always told myself I’d never be one of those people who cries in therapy, but I was crying then. My therapist was polite enough to ignore it. 

“Can you tell yourself any of these things now _,_ Simon? Can you tell your twenty-two year old self?” 

“I didn’t - I told you. I failed. I let people _die._ ” 

“Tell me,” said my therapist, leaning forwards in his chair. “While you thought you were looking after everybody you loved - guarding everybody you knew, and everybody you _didn’t_ know, the whole _world_ \- who was looking after you? Who was _your_ guardian?” 

I wanted to say the Mage. It was there, on the tip of my tongue, and we’d talked about him before. But I couldn’t say that out loud in good conscience. Because it’s not true, is it? With everything I know now, it’s not - and it never was. 

“Did you fail him, Simon? You - a child, who just needed somebody to take care of you? Who fought so hard, every day, that you didn’t have time to rest? Or did he fail you?” 

I couldn’t speak for a while after that. He let me sit in silence for what must have been ages, until the session ended. 

Next time I went - the last time before lockdown started - I’d barely sat down when he was at it again.

“Let’s make a list, Simon. Properly this time. What do you _like_ about yourself?” 

I thought for a while, picking at a loose thread in the seam of the chair. “I try really hard to help people,” I said eventually, almost cringing away from the words as they came out of my mouth. “Or - I did. I used to. I tried to do what was asked of me. What people needed me to do. Even when it was hard. Even when it hurt.” 

“Good. What else?” 

“I want to take care of people. I want - I want to make sure nothing bad happens to them.” 

“These are things that you can do for other people,” my therapist said, raising an eyebrow at me. “What do you like about yourself that’s just for _you_?” 

“I think I - well, I used to be pretty tough. I could take a few good knocks and get back up again. And I - even when I was fighting for someone else, I was always trying to do the right thing. What _I_ thought was right.” I was speaking in stops and starts, just letting the thoughts tumble out of my mouth as they came. “And I guess I speak up for what I think is important. I like that. And - even when I wasn’t good enough, I was trying. I _am_ trying. To be good.” 

“You told me back when we started doing this work together that you didn’t know what your ex-partner saw in you. Do you think there’s a chance that _this_ is what he saw? All the things you just said?” 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I still don’t know. 

I spent so long convinced that Baz was looking at me and seeing every failure _I_ saw when I looked in the mirror. I gave up on trying, because I felt like even my best was pathetic; it would never be enough. 

It was like - like I didn’t know how to love him. Or more that I didn’t know how to be loved. Probably because I’ve never _been_ loved.

Except, I think now, that’s not really fair. 

Because; Agatha. 

*

The phone rings for so long that I don’t think she’s going to pick up, and when she does she sounds annoyed. 

“Simon?” 

“Hi Agatha,” I say awkwardly. We don’t talk much one-on-one. It’s always made me feel a bit guilty. 

“You didn’t die, then,” she says. “Penny made it sound like you weren’t long for this world.” 

“Didn’t die,” I say. “Er. How are you?”

“Peachy,” Agatha says, all dry and disapproving. “I hear you’re trapped in your very own rom-com.” 

“Yeah,” I say heavily. “Not so much of either, as it turns out.” 

“Shame.” A silence. 

“Agatha - what was it like, being my girlfriend? Being with me?”  
  
“ _What_?” Agatha replies, and I cringe away from the phone a bit. “For fuck’s sake, Simon. Is now really the time?” 

“Yeah? I mean - sorry, Agatha, but I really want to know.” 

She sighs. I think she’s going to hang up, or tell me to fuck off, but then she speaks. “It was - well. I loved you, and you loved me, but it was all - habit, and familiarity. We made sense together, so we were together. We weren’t each other’s great loves. _Obviously."_ I snort with laughter, surprising myself, and I think I hear a smile in her voice too for a second. 

“You were - you were _very_ hard to get through to. You were stubborn and you never actually listened, you just - you made up your own mind about everything and then carried on as if that were the absolute truth. But to be honest, you’re wrong an _awful lot of the time,_ Simon. That’s how we ended up walking into so many traps.”

“Yeah,” I say miserably, not laughing now. “Guess so.” 

“Well, it was alright for you, most of the time. No matter what scrapes we got into, you used to bounce back. Whenever we argued, you’d be right as rain the next day, wanting to make up. But now I think … you take each knock a lot harder. You need a lot more to get you back on your feet. I guess - I guess because you’ve lost so much. And you’ve seen what’s at stake. But …” she trails off.

“But what?” I say urgently. 

She sighs again. “People want to give you that help, Simon. You just need to believe you can take it.” 

I swallow, hard. “I’m really sorry, Agatha. For - well, for a lot of things. But mostly for taking you for granted. For treating you like you were … I dunno. A character in my story. The reward at the end, if I did everything right. You were - you _are_ \- so much more than that.” 

Agatha sighs, sounding exasperated. “I fucking know I am, Simon.” 

“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.” 

“Good. That’s good.” I smile down the phone, as if she can see me. “Agatha … would you have ever cleaned up my sick?” 

“ _What_?” 

“Would you have - like, even after we ended things, would you have cleaned it up if I’d thrown up everywhere? Like, on the floor? And on you?” 

“Jesus Christ, Simon, _no_.” She swears like a Normal now. I like that about her; it sounds hilarious coming out of her country-club mouth. I should meet up with her some time, when we’re allowed out again. I should look her in the eye when we talk. 

“Yeah,” I say, smiling again. “I didn’t think so.” 

BAZ

  
  


I wake up with the Xbox controller still in my hand. I must have slept for ages, because Simon is already up; I can hear him moving around the kitchen, trying to be quiet, swearing under his breath every time he accidentally knocks plates together or whatever the hell it is he’s doing. 

The air smells _great,_ like butter and frying flour. It takes me a second to work out what it is, but then I place it; pancakes. Simon is making pancakes. 

I get up and stretch, and I hear him immediately drop a plate.

I turn to see him frowning down at it on the floor. “Didn’t smash,” he says, almost philosophically. 

“I take it you’re not in imminent danger of vomiting?” I reply, and he shrugs. 

“Feel completely fine this morning. Like it never happened.” 

“Hmm,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “Tell that to my shirt.”

“Sorry,” he says, looking genuinely guilty, and I immediately feel like a monster. As if a shirt matters. As if _any_ of it matters. He can - and did, in the not-so-distant past - bleed all over me, and I’ll just open my arms up each time he’s hurt and ask him to do it again. 

Something smells perilously close to setting alight. “Pancakes,” I remind him, and he looks panicked.

“ _Shit_.” He dives for the frying pan as I walk towards him, wings jolting out as if to defend him from an invisible enemy, and abruptly turns off the heat - but it’s too late. “That was the last one, anyway.” We both look at it for a second before I pick up the pan and tip its contents into the bin. 

“Did I hear you on the phone earlier?” I was half-asleep, but it’s coming back to me now; Simon’s low voice in the other room, a soothing rumble through the door. 

“Uh,” he says, looking shifty and nervous. “Yeah. Can you - just sit down, okay?” 

I’m so surprised by his tone that I actually do as he says without another word; I sit watching the back of his neck as he fumbles with plates, trying to juggle two of them stacked with pancakes as well as a punnet of strawberries, an open pot of jam and-

“Smarties,” I say, raising an eyebrow as he deposits it all in front of me, somehow managing to keep everything intact.

“Yeah,” he says grimly. He pushes one of the plates towards me, but neither of us start eating. 

“You actually still want to eat those?” I say, ever impressed by Simon’s iron stomach. 

“No,” he says with a shudder. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat them again, it’s just - you know. It’s not the Smarties. It’s what the Smarties … represent.” 

“Maybe you _did_ have a fever after all,” I say, “because you seem to be brain damaged.” Simon rolls his eyes. 

“Just - listen. Okay? Please?” 

“Okay,” I say, gently this time, because he looks so tortured he’s probably about to burst a vein. He glances down at the half-empty tube in his hand and grimaces, as if he’s not the one who picked the damn things up again. He pushes his pancakes aside - I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen Simon eschew a hot meal, so this must be serious - and tips the remaining Smarties out onto the table.

He picks one up with extreme trepidation. 

I realise I’ve suddenly gone very still, waiting for him to speak. 

“If I’m being honest - like, properly honest,” he starts, and I feel my heart jump to my throat, “I was scared. When we were together. After all the - after everything else stopped, and it was just you and me. I was scared, and stupid, and - and I didn’t listen to you when you told me you wanted me, fucked up as I was, because I thought I knew better,” he takes a deep breath. All of my instincts are telling me to reach over and steady him with a hand on his arm, but I don’t want to move in case he stops talking. “I hated myself. Baz, I really - everything got dark and shit and I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I thought there was no way you, or - or _anyone_ could love me.” 

I know this. Don’t I? I knew it deep down, but it’s different hearing him say it out loud. That he _hated_ himself. It feels like a knife to the chest. It feels as painful as if he were telling me he hated _me_ , because - how could he look at himself and not see that he was worthy of love? How could we - Penny and I - how could we have let him believe that? We should have told him. We should have told him every day. 

I feel like I’m going to cry, but I don’t; I just hold his gaze, give him a nod, let him know that it’s okay to keep going. He drops the Smartie back in the tube, and picks up another one. It’s blue. 

“You’re right that I’ve been running away. It’s not, like - I still think I need to _try_ things, like getting a Normal job and feeling like I have something to do, or a - a sense of _purpose._ I don’t think I’m getting that wrong. But that also doesn’t mean it’s right for me to pretend my old life doesn’t exist.” 

“Or for you to run out on Bunce?” I say, before I can stop myself.

“Maybe,” Simon says, wincing. “I dunno. We’ll see.” Another Smartie.

“I still don’t know - who I am, or who I’m meant to be. But my therapist tells me that’s normal. I’m normal. And that I don’t have to know everything about myself right now. That I’m allowed to change. And be different. And even though I might never fully know who I am, like my whole - _everything,_ there are things I do know about myself.” 

“You’re stubborn as a mule,” I say, smiling, even though it hurts. “And you always dive into things without thinking, even if your instincts are stupid - _especially_ when they’re stupid. And - and you’d destroy anything you thought might hurt the people you love. Even yourself.” 

“Yeah,” Simon says throatily, laughing. “Yeah. I’m a right fucking prick sometimes. But some of it’s good, too. It’s not all good, but - some of it.” He picks up another Smartie. Clenches it in his hand. Blinks as a solitary tear escapes from under his eyelashes.

I do reach for him then. He slides his hand towards mine, giving just an inch, but it feels like we’re bridging something much bigger.

“I’m sorry for what I put you through, Baz. I’m so fucking sorry. I’ve made this so hard, but - I’m not sorry we got stuck here anymore. Even though it hurt. Even though I - even though I puked all over you, and I’m pretty sure I ruined a - like - two hundred quid shirt.” I laugh, then. I’m crying a little too. 

Simon squeezes my hand and leans in, earnest and frowning. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel like you have to look after me all the time. You and Penny. I’m going to be okay. I’m not fixed, I don’t know if I’ll ever be _great,_ but - I’ll be okay. And Baz, I think - I think sometimes somebody needs to look after _you_.” 

I can’t let myself believe that he’s saying what I think he’s saying - what I hope he’s saying. And I can’t ask him. I’ve been asking and asking him for months - _years_ \- in so many different ways, and I don’t have it in me to ask again.

“There’s still one more Smartie,” I say instead. Simon looks down at it, steadying himself, before looking back up at me with a face so vulnerable and naked and broken open - _wide_ open - that my breath catches in my throat. 

“I love you, Baz. I really - I never stopped loving you. I really don’t think I know how to stop. I know this is the biggest fucking mess in the world and - and shit, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to wade back into it. But if you do-” he reaches for my other hand, so he’s holding both of them, “-I promise I’ll actually listen to you when you tell me what you want. Whether that’s me, or - or _not_ me.”

I let out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. “Simon. You idiot. It’s _always_ going to be you.”

He laughs disbelievingly and leans across the table, getting jam all over his shirt instantly, because of course he does; and then he presses trembling fingers to my jaw. I want to close my eyes and lean into his touch, but nothing on earth could make me tear my eyes away from Simon’s right now.

“Can I?” He says, his voice shaking. 

I smile through my tears. “Simon, you don’t have to-” 

He kisses me before I can finish. It’s messy, and the table is digging into my stomach, and we’re both crying, but on balance-

Well, it’s probably the best kiss I’ve ever had. 

  
  


PENNY

  
  


Shepard is on a Wikipedia bender and is trying to tell me something disgusting about _dolphin penises_ when my phone starts ringing. I was trying to ignore him anyway - he’s _very_ difficult to ignore when he gets like this, but I wanted to make it clear that cetacean phalluses are not the way to my, or anybody’s, heart - so I jump at the chance to tell him to shut up.

“Simon is FaceTiming me,” I say, frowning. Simon doesn’t FaceTime. Neither does Baz, for that matter. Maybe it’s a butt-dial. Or maybe they’ve finally killed each other and the police need me to ID their corpses while maintaining social distancing. 

I swipe to pick up, and Shepard abandons his disturbing research to come and lie next to me on my bed. 

It takes a second to connect, and then Simon’s face is filling the screen. 

“Hello?” I say. He’s laughing at something off-screen, grinning so much his face looks fit to split in half. I’m utterly baffled. 

“Hi - sorry Pen, hi,” he says, and there’s a certain amount of fumbling as he moves the phone. The view shifts and stabilises and I realise he’s propped it up on the coffee table, facing the sofa. I can see all of him now. And I can also see-

“What the _fuck,_ ” I say, my eyes widening. 

Shepard just starts laughing. “Nice _,_ ” he says, giving an approving thumbs up.

Simon isn’t alone on the sofa. Baz is sitting next to him. _Underneath_ him. Simon’s sprawled out with his legs in Baz’s lap; Baz has one arm resting on Simon’s knee, and the other thrown around Simon’s shoulders. 

Baz isn’t looking at the camera. He’s looking at Simon. He’s looking at Simon like he’s never _ever_ going to look away again. 

“Simon Snow,” I say, my voice coming out rather shrill. “Are you _sitting in Basil’s lap_?” 

Baz finally drags his eyes away from Simon to wink at me. He looks shattered - they both do - but _deliriously_ happy. 

“Eyes up, Bunce,” he says. “You have to pay for premium content like this.” 

Shepard laughs again. I just start shaking my head.

“Years of my life, this took up,” I say, as Shepard puts an arm around me and pulls me towards him, caught up in the joy of it all. “Years. I could have done so much with that time. I could have learned another language; I could have travelled the world. And all I needed to do to sort you two out was lock you in a flat together for _one week_.” 

I don’t think they feel particularly admonished. I don’t think they’re even _remotely_ sorry.

I’m not convinced I have their attention at all, in fact. 

Because they’re bloody _kissing._

_*_


End file.
